Bo3  S43 


Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-1893^ 
Sermons  for  the  principal 
festivals  and  fasts  of  the . ; 


M 


Sermons 

For  the  Principal  Festivals  and  Fasts 
of  the  Church  Year 


By  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D. 

Edited  by  the 
Rev.  John  Cotton  Brooks 


5^ 


Seventh  Series 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

68i  Fifth  Ave. 


Copyright,  i8gs 

BY 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


TO  THE   MEMORY   OF  MY   BROTHER, 

ARTHUR   BROOKS, 

MY   COMPANION   IN  BOYHOOD   AND   IN   MANHOOD, 

I   DEDICATE, 

IN   LOVING   REMEMBRANCE  AND   PATIENT   HOPE,   THESE 

SERMONS  OF   HIM   WITH  WHOM   NOW  HE  WALKS 

IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GLORIFIED  CHRIST, 

WHOSE  THEY  ARE  AND   WHOM  THEY   SERVE. 

J.  C.  B. 

OCTOBER, 
1895. 


COl^TEKTS. 


■>■•  PAGB 

First  Sunday  in  Advent 1 

"  Till  we  all  come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith,  and  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  perfect  man,  unto 
the  measiu'e  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ." — 
Eph.  IV,  13. 

II. 

Second  Sundat  in  Advent 18 

"  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him 
not.  But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." — John  i.  11,  12. 

III. 

Third  Sunday  in  Advent 35 

"  He  was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness 
of  that  Light."— John  i.  8. 

IV. 
Fourth  Sunday  in  Advent 54 

"But  when  the  fidlness  of  the  time  was  come,  God 
sent  forth  His  Son." — Gal.  iv.  4. 

V. 
Christmas  Eve 72 

"Because  there  was  no  room  for  them  in  the  inn." — 
Luke  n.  7. 


VI  CONTENTS. 

VI.  PAGB 

Christmas  Day 85 

"And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us." 
—John  i.  14. 

VII. 

Sunday  after  Christmas  97 

"And  because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the 
Spirit  of  His  Son  into  your  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father." 
—Gal.  IV.  6. 

vm. 

Ash  Wednesday 110 

"  Blessed  are  they  whose  iniquities  are  forgiven,  and 
whose  sins  are  covered." — Eom.  iv.  7. 

IX. 

First  Sunday  in  Lent 130 

"  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilder- 
ness to  be  tempted  of  the  devil." — Matt.  iv.  1. 

X. 

Second  Sunday  in  Lent 150 

"  It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but 
by  every  word  that  proeeedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God." 
— Matt.  iv.  4. 

XI. 

Third  Sunday  in  Lent 167 

"  Again,  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  an  exceeding 
high  mountain,  and  showeth  Him  all  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them." — Matt.  iv.  8. 

xn. 

Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent 184 

"  And  David  said  unto  Nathan,  I  have  sinned  against 
the  Lord.  And  Nathan  said  unto  David,  The  Lord  also 
hath  put  away  thy  sin ;  thou  shalt  not  die." — 2  Sam.  xii.  13. 


CONTENTS.  VU 

Xm.  PAGE 

Fifth  Sunday  in  Lent 196 

"  Ye  are  they  which  have  continued  with  Me  in  My 
temptations.  And  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  as  My 
Father  hath  appointed  iinto  Me." — Luke  xxil.  28,  29. 

XIV. 

The  Sunday  next  before  Easter 209 

"And  they  that  went  before,  and  they  that  followed, 
cried,  saying,  Hosanna ;  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord." — Mark  xi.  9. 

XV. 
Passion  Week 222 

"Now  is  My  soul  troubled;  and  what  shall  I  sayf 
Father,  save  Me  from  this  hour.  But  for  this  cause  came 
I  Tinto  this  hour.  Father,  glorify  Thy  name." — John 
XII.  27,  28. 

XVI. 
Thursday  before  Easter 239 

"And  He  cometh,  and  findeth  them  sleeping,  and  saith 
unto  Peter,  Simon,  sleepest  thou?  couldest  not  thou 
watch  one  hour?" — Mark  xiv.  37. 

xvn. 

Good  Friday 255 

"  And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  .  .  .  will  draw  all  men  unto 
Me." — John  xii.  32. 

XVIII. 
Easter  Day 269 

"That  I  may  know  Him,  and  the  power  of  His  resur- 
rection."'— Phil.  hi.  10. 


VUl  CONTENTS. 

XIX.  PAGE 

AsCENSioK  Day 286 

"And  a  cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sight." — Acts 
I.  9. 

"  Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught 
up  together  with  them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord 
in  the  air :  and  so  shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord." — 1 
Thess.  IV.  17. 

XX. 

Whitsunday 303 

"The  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost.'' — 2  Cor.  xiii. 
14. 

XXI. 

Trinity  Sunday 318 

"  Again,  He  sent  other  servants  more  than  the  first. 
.  .  .  But  last  of  all  He  sent  unto  them  His  Son." — Matt. 
XXI.  36,  37. 

XXII. 
The  Transfiguration  op  Christ 336 

"  And  Peter  answ^ered  and  said  to  Jesus,  Master,  it  is 
good  for  us  to  be  here :  and  let  us  make  three  taber- 
nacles ;  one  for  Thee,  and  one  for  Moses,  and  one  for 
Eliae.     For  he  wist  not  what  to  say." — Mark  ix.  5,  6. 


I. 

FIRST   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

"  Till  we  all  come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith,  and  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  perfect  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the 
statui-e  of  the  fullness  of  Christ."— Eph.  iv.  13. 

If  any  entire  stranger  were  to  come  to-day  into  our 
service  and  watch  it  as  it  moves  along  from  step  to 
step,  one  thing  would  become  evident  to  him  in  it  all. 
He  would  see  that  we  were  'beginning  something.  Every- 
thing, apparently,  is  starting  fresh.  And  if  he  looked 
along  the  services  of  the  other  Sundays  that  are  to 
follow  this  he  would  see  that  it  is  a  whole  long  year 
that  we  are  commencing.  A  course  that  runs  on 
through  the  next  twelve  months  opens  to-day.  On 
through  the  deepening  winter,  on  through  the  open- 
ing spring,  on  into  the  far-off  warmth  of  next  summer, 
until  another  autumn  closes  on  us,  is  to  run  the  course 
of  services  beginning  on  this  Advent  Sunday.  It  is  the 
Church's  New- Year's  Day.  And  one  thing  more  would 
strike  him  if  he  were  observant.  He  would  see  that 
all  this  year  is  filled  and  shaped  by  the  life  of  a  Person. 
One  man's  biography  sweeps  through  it  aU,  and  every 
season  is  colored  with  the  aspect  in  which  it  finds  the 
great  pervading  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  Men's  fortunes 
and  employments  will  change  as  they  always  do.    Suc- 

1 


^  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

cess  and  failure,  health  and  sickaess,  life  and  death, 
will  come  with  all  the  changing  months  around  to  next 
December;  but  through  them  all,  as  if  it  were  some- 
thing that  lay  deeper  than  their  changes,  as  if  it  were 
the  presence  in  which  and  even  the  power  by  which 
all  men  failed  or  succeeded,  lived  or  died,  will  run  the 
story  of  Him  who  was  born  in  Bethlehem  and  ascended 
into  heaven  from  the  Mount  of  Olives.  And  the  ob- 
servant stranger  who  saw  this  would  have  thus  foimd 
the  central  truth  of  Christianity.  He  would  have  seen 
represented  that  presence  and  power  which  all  Chris- 
tian life,  whether  of  church  or  soul,  is  always  trying  to 
realize — the  presence  and  power  of  the  Incarnation ;  the 
truth  that  all  of  human  life  is  lived  in  the  presence  of, 
is  represented  by,  and  may  be  filled  with  and  inspired 
by  the  life  of  the  great  Son  of  Man,  who  in  a  hundred 
senses  lived  for  all  men ;  in  whose  experiences  all  human 
experiences  ought  to  find  their  key  and  their  solution ; 
who  became  completely  what  we  are  that  we  might 
come  in  everything  to  be  like  Him. 

Christ  was  both  the  Redeemer  and  the  Type  of  hu- 
man life,  the  Saviour  and  the  Pattern  of  men  at  once. 
We  too  much  separate  His  two  great  offices,  which 
really  are  not  distinguishable.  He  could  not  have  been 
our  Saviour  without  being  our  Pattern ;  and  even  in 
the  most  mysterious  functions  of  this  Saviourhood 
there  is  always  something  in  which  we  can  pattern 
ourselves  by  Him.  It  follows,  then,  that  all  this  life 
whose  story  we  begin  to-day  is  not  merely  a  remote  in- 
imitable transaction  wrought  for  every  man's  salvation, 
but  is  also  the  type  of  every  man's  existence.  It  is  the 
great  representative  existence.     All  that  happened  to 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  3 

Christ's  "humanity  belongs  to  the  perfect  ideal  picture 
of  every  human  life.  As  we  stand,  then,  upon  the 
height  of  Advent  Sunday  and  look  along  the  stages 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  which  the  Church  will  one  by  one 
commemorate,  we  are  really  looking  along  the  history 
of  universal  human  life,  and  so  the  possible,  the  perfect 
life  of  every  man.  Each  stage  was  perfect  in  its  devel- 
opment in  Him,  but  each  stage,  however  imperfectly 
lived,  belongs  to  all  men.  The  _^Christian  year  be- 
comes, then,  in  one  very  true  view  of  it,  the  picture  of 
a  human  life  from  its  first  suggested  promise  to  its 
latest  effective  influence  upon  the  earth.  Let  me  lead 
you  to  this  thought  and  its  developments.  Let  us 
see  how  each  season  of  the  Church's  year  presents  a 
true  period  in  and  experience  of  every  truly  human 
life,  represented  by  and  worked  out  in  the  pattern  of 
the  human  life  of  Jesus.  I  hope  that  such  a  study  may 
do  something  to  bring  the  perfect  divine  and  human 
life  of  Christ  closer  to  these  lives  of  ours ;  for  that  is 
what  all  our  worship  and  preaching  are  for ;  that  is  the 
greatest  happiness  and  blessing  that  can  come  to  any 
man. 

The  Church's  year  begins  with  Christ's  advent ;  then 
comes  His  epiphany,  then  His  suffering  and  death,  and 
then  the  giving  of  His  Spirit.  Through  all  of  these  we 
shall  pass  in  these  next  few  months. 

1.  Take  first  the  advent.  It  was  not  suddenly  and 
unannounced  that  Jesus  came  into  the  world.  He 
came  into  a  world  that  had  been  prepared  for  Him. 
The  whole  Old  Testament  is  the  story  of  a  special  prep- 
aration. The  key  to  Jewish  history  is  the  anticipation 
of  His  coming.    And  we  have  not  begun  to  understand 


4  FIEST   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

the  vastness  of  His  mission  unless  we  know  that  not 
merely  the  education  of  Judea,  but  the  education  of 
the  whole  world,  was  and  is  aimed  at  the  preparation 
for  the  time  when  Jesus  Christ  should  come  to  be  its 
Master.  You  go  into  some  heathen  island  now  and 
preach  Christ,  and  every  readiness  of  nature  to  appre- 
ciate and  take  Him,  which  has  been  wrought  out  by  aU 
their  religious  struggles,  is  but  another  sign  and  illus- 
tration of  how  God  prepares  the  advent  of  His  Son. 
And  then  inside  of  the  Judean  history  we  have  the 
special  preparation — the  story  which  we  read  this 
morning,  the  mission  and  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist. 
Only  when  all  was  ready,  only  in  the  fullness  of  His 
time,  did  Jesus  come. 

And  now  what  shall  we  say  about  the  lives  of  other 
men — the  men  of  whom  He  was  the  representative  and 
the  chief  ?  Have  they  their  advents  too  ?  It  is  easy  to  be- 
lieve it  about  the  greatest  of  them.  It  is  easy  to  think 
that  those  who  have  gathered  the  richness  of  the  world 
into  themselves  and  turned  its  currents  of  action  or 
thought — easy  to  think  of  Moses,  Charlemagne,  Luther, 
Bacon,  Shakespeare — that  God  prepared  the  world 
against  their  coming  and  sent  them  when  the  world  was 
ready.  The  ages  seem  to  make  their  advents.  But  it  is 
hard  to  think  the  same  of  common  people  such  as  3' on  and 
I.  It  seems  as  if  our  lives  might  have  been  dropped  any- 
where— three  thousand  years  ago  as  well  as  now,  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  Nile  as  weU  as  on  the  shores  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay.  Hard  as  it  is,  great  as  the  strain  which 
it  puts  on  all  our  low  habits  of  thinking  about  our- 
selves, the  Bible  is  a  strong  and  glorious  call  to  men  to 
gird  up  the  loins  of  their  minds  and  beUeve  that  God 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  AD"V^ENT.  5 

had  a  place  for  them  and  put  them  in  their  own  place. 
It  has  these  two  truths,  which  it  insists  upon  every- 
where :  that  God  cares  separately  for  every  man,  and 
that  every  man  has  his  own  individual  personal  char- 
acter. Personal  divine  care  and  personal  human  char- 
acter— these  two  ideas  are  bright  in  all  the  Bible ;  in 
both  the  Testaments,  in  David  and  in  Paul  alike.  Take 
those  two  truths  together  and  they  would  blend  in  the 
conviction  that  God  surely  could  not  send  His  souls  at 
random  into  the  world,  but  for  each  a  place  must  be 
hollowed  in  the  plain  of  time  and  filled  with  all  that 
could  bring  that  soul  to  its  best  completeness.  And 
this  conviction,  gathered  out  of  the  Bible's  whole  treat- 
ment of  humanity,  is  set  forth  with  representative 
clearness  in  the  story  of  the  advent  of  the  Son  of  Man, 

This,  then,  is  the  beginning  of  a  life.  It  goes  back 
before  the  moment  when  the  man  is  here,  a  visible  fact 
upon  the  earth.  It  lays  hold  of  the  thought  of  God 
which  runs  back  into  eternity.  God  knew  your  nature. 
He  had  a  plan  and  pattern  of  your  being  in  His  mind. 
As  David  says,  His  eyes  did  see  your  substance,  yet 
being  imperfect,  and  in  His  book  were  all  your  mem- 
bers written.  Knowing  you,  He  made  ready  a  place 
for  you,  He  shaped  a  cradle  for  you  in  the  ages,  and 
when  it  was  all  done  He  laid  your  new  life  in  it — the 
advent  before  the  nativity. 

What  influence  shall  it  have  upon  a  man  for  him  to 
know  all  this  about  his  life — to  know  that  it  was  contem- 
plated and  the  world  made  ready  for  it  before  he  was 
born  ?  Shall  it  not  give  him,  fii'st,  a  deep  reverence  for 
his  own  life  f  Shall  it  not  shake  him  free  from  that  moral 
laziness  which  cloaks  itself  in  the  disguise  of  modesty, 


6  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT, 

and  make  him  accept  the  responsibilities  and  duties  of 
a  being  for  whom  God  has  made  the  earth  and  the  ages 
ready  ? 

And  shall  it  not  make  him  docile,  teaching  him  to  look 
not  to  his  own  self-will,  but  to  the  God  who  chose  his 
place  for  him,  to  know  what,  living  in  just  that  place,  he 
ought  to  be  ?  Responsibility  and  docility — these  qual- 
ities of  which  the  life  of  Jesus  was  so  full — must  fill  the 
life  of  every  man  who  believes  in  his  own  advent. 

2.  After  the  advent  comes  the  nativity.  The  prom- 
ised Christ  is  born.  We  can  see  what  that  meant  in 
the  history  of  Jesus.  No  longer  prophesied  and  an- 
ticipated, at  last  the  great  typal  life  was  a  real  fact  in 
the  world — a  visible  fact  with  aU  its  possibilities  con- 
tained within  it.  It  was,  indeed,  but  a  poor  helpless 
child  at  Bethlehem,  but  in  its  being  there  was  reaUy 
wrapped  up  all  that  that  child  was  to  gi'ow  to  and  to 
be  and  do.  No  wonder  that  Christmas  Day  has  been  so 
sacred  to  all  those  who  believed  in  Jesus  Christ ;  for  it 
has  seemed  to  sum  up  in  itself  every  association  and 
meaning  of  His  life.  Birth,  the  second  fact  in  existence, 
the  actual  appearing  of  a  being  planned  in  the  thought 
of  God,  had  first  in  Christ  this  deep  and  comprehensive 
value,  but  it  has  kept  that  same  value  always. 

Carry  it  over  now  to  other  men.  Why  is  it  that  we 
celebrate  the  birthdays  of  great  men  ?  Is  it  not  because 
aU  that  they  were  and  did  seems  to  be  gathered  up  into 
that  critical  moment  when  their  life  first  was  present  as 
a  true,  real  fact  among  the  lives  of  men  ?  And  remember, 
here,  just  as  before,  our  distinctions  between  great  men 
and  conunon  men  are  mostly  arbitrary  and  accidental. 
We  are  aU  so  little  and  all  so  great  in  God's  sight.  So  that 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  7 

the  birth  of  any  man,  the  beginning  of  any  new  life,  is  a 
great  and  solemn  thing.  How  hard  it  is  sometimes  to 
make  it  seem  so  to  ourselves !  With  all  this  swarm  of 
men  about  us,  how  in  our  lower  moments  we  wonder, 
after  all,  whether  it  is  more  than  the  buzzing  of  a  little 
wiser  bees  about  their  hive,  or  the  clustering  of  a  little 
bigger  ants  around  their  ant-hiU  !  What  matter  whether 
there  be  one  more  or  less  ?  What  matter  whether  one 
be  taken  away  or  one  added  to  the  uncounted  number  ? 
What  matter  death  or  birth  ?  That  is  the  low  way  of 
looking  at  it  all.  The  higher  way,  catching  the  spirit 
of  the  Lord's  nativity,  when  the  angels  sang  in  heaven 
because  a  Man  was  born,  and  the  verj^  stars  were  con- 
scious of  His  coming,  sees  the  true  dignity,  the  almost 
awful  solemnity  of  a  human  birth.  It  wonders  whether 
there  is  anything  in  the  universe  more  critical  and 
sacred  than  for  a  new  human  life  to  begin  here  on  the 
earth.  These  other  worlds  about  us  may  have  the  same 
mysterious,  infinite  event.  In  them,  too,  spiritual  be- 
ings— beings  with  characters  like  men  and  women — 
may  be  born,  and  then  there  is  in  them  the  same  so- 
lemnity that  there  is  here.  But  if  not — if  they  have  no 
life  of  character,  nothing  corresponding  to  our  person- 
ality— then  no  splendor  or  exquisiteness  of  physical 
life  that  they  may  have  to  boast  can  make  them  for  a 
moment  rivals  in  dignity  and  interest  of  this  little 
planet  that  swims  in  their  midst.  For  here  men  are 
born.  Each  from  the  moment  of  his  birth  has  his  own 
singleness  and  unity.  Each  may  be  saved  or  lost. 
Each  may  do  right  or  wrong.  Each  may  be  like  God 
or  like  Satan.  Each  has  a  capacity  of  happiness  or 
misery  as  yet  unfathomed.    Each  may  become  glorious 


8  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

or  horrible — glorious  with  a  spiritual  luster  that  no 
physical  brilliaiice  of  any  brightest  star  can  compare 
with,  or  horrible  with  a  tragical  destruction  that  no 
burned  and  blasted  planet  can  begin  to  match.  All  this 
is  wrapped  up  in  every  man's  bii"th,  his  whole  power  of 
separate  existence ;  and  so  every  man  who  really  knows 
the  sacredness  of  his  own  birth,  who  has  learned  from 
the  wonders  that  surrounded  the  entrance  of  God  into 
our  flesh  what  a  wonderful  thing  it  is  for  any  man  to 
begin  to  live  in  the  life  which  the  Incarnation  illumi- 
nated, must  go  through  life  strong  and  alert,  with  a 
clear  sense  of  his  own  personality,  never  losing  himself 
in  the  mass  and  crowd,  keeping  his  independence,  think- 
ing his  own  thoughts,  and  feeling  his  own  feelings — 
being  a  man,  as  he  never  loses  sight  of  his  birth,  the  time 
when  he  began  to  be  a  man. 

3.  After  Advent  and  Christmas  in  the  Church's  year 
comes  the  Epiphany,  which  celebrates  the  manifestation 
of  Christ  to  those  entirely  outside  of  His  own  life  and 
all  its  first  associations.  The  world  made  ready  for 
Him  and  His  birth  complete,  now  He  must  show  His  in- 
fluence upon  the  world.  The  purpose  of  His  coming 
must  be  seen,  that  men  may  be  something  different  be- 
cause He  is  here ;  may  be  drawn  away  from  themselves 
to  Him.  I  want  you  to  see  how  this  new  stage  in 
Christ's  life  represents  the  next  stage  in  the  fullest  and 
highest  life  of  man  ;  for  it  is  most  important,  and  it  is 
so  easUy  forgotten  and  neglected.  A  man's  place  is 
made  ready  for  him  in  the  mind  of  God ;  the  man's  life 
is  set  here  as  a  positive,  clear  fact ;  and  what  comes 
next  ?  There  is  no  doubt  what  ought  to  come.  That 
life  must  tell.     It  must  go  out  beyond  itself.     It  must 


PmST   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  i) 

have  influence.  It  must  testify  and  supplement  the 
mere  fact  of  its  existence  by  making  other  existences 
be  something  which  they  would  not  be  without  it.  This 
seems  so  plain.  This  is  so  clearly  set  forth  in  the  great 
typical  life  of  Jesus.  Can  you  conceive  of  an  incarna- 
tion in  which  it  should  not  have  been  prominent  ?  Can 
you  picture  to  youi'self  God  coming  into  this  world 
and  then  hving  a  perfectly  self-contained  life — one 
that  recognized  no  relations  with  and  exercised  no 
power  over  other  lives  about  Him  ?  No  !  The  epiph- 
any followed  immediately  on  the  advent  and  the  nativity. 
Not  by  an  effort ;  it  was  the  next  natural  and  necessary 
stage.  It  was  a  true  epiphany.  He  merely  showed 
Himself.  He  let  His  life  go  forth  on  other  lives.  He 
let  His  great  Hght  shine  before  men.  But  how  many 
there  are  who  realize  their  advent  and  their  nativity 
who  have  never  conceived  for  themselves  of  an  epiph- 
any !  There  are  so  many  men  who  believe  in  their 
own  place  in  the  world,  and  are  conscious  of  their  own 
personal  nature  with  its  capacities  and  needs,  who 
never  have  gone  any  further — never  have  dreamed 
that  they  were  put  here  ivhere  they  are,  and  made  to  be 
ivhaf  they  are,  in  order  that  other  men  might  be  some- 
tliing  else  through  them.  This  is  one  of  the  heresies 
of  life  which  men  are  not  ashamed  to  own.  They  put 
it  into  philosophic  shapes.  There  are  theories  of  self- 
culture  which  are  printed  in  books,  taught  in  our 
schools,  given  as  very  gospels  to  our  children  as  they 
grow  up,  which  would  be  just  exactly  the  same  that 
they  are  now  if  no  such  dream  as  a  possible  duty  of 
usefulness  and  influence  from  that  child  to  other  peo- 
ple had  ever  entered  into  the  thought  of  God  or  man. 


10  PmST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

Hear  what  a  child  is  taught.  Is  not  this  mostly  what 
is  said  to  him  ?  "  You  are  born  into  this  rich  and  gor- 
geous nineteenth  century.  You  are  the  *  heir  of  all  the 
ages.'  All  the  thought,  discovery,  invention,  progress 
of  the  centuries  have  been  fitting  this  world  for  your 
coming.  And  now,  when  the  world  is  all  ready,  here 
you  are."  That  is  the  lesson  of  his  advent.  And  then 
he  is  told :  "  You  are  born  into  this  world ;  you,  a  sep- 
arate, distinct,  new  being ;  you,  with  a  personal  life ; 
you  who  are  and  can  be  something  that  no  other  being 
in  the  world  can  be."  That  is  the  lesson  of  his  nativity. 
He  takes  them  both,  and  the  result  of  both  as  they 
sink  into  his  soul  is  a  conviction  and  a  resolution  full 
of  selfishness :  "  I  will  study,  I  will  work  and  think,  I 
will  claim  my  place  here — all  that  I  may  be  myself  com- 
pletely, that  I  may  cultivate  myself."  It  rings  through 
all  our  books  and  colleges,  through  all  our  homes  and 
stores,  this  gospel  of  self-culture.  "  Be  strong,  be  rich, 
be  wise,  be  good."  What  for?  "Why,  so  that  you 
may  be  wise  and  rich  and  strong  and  good."  The  end- 
less circle  with  its  bright  monotonous  round.  No  won- 
der that  so  many  young  men  are  asking  in  the  bottom 
of  their  hearts  questions  of  most  terrible  skepticism : 
"  Wliat  is  the  use  ?  Is  it  worth  while  to  be  wise  and 
strong  and  rich  and  good  ? "  Ah,  you  must  find  the  use 
outside  yourself.  You  must  let  your  light  shine  before 
men,  that  they  may  see  your  good  works,  and  glorify 
your  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  You  must  complete 
your  advent  and  nativity  with  an  epiphany  of  yourself. 
Then  it  will  seem  weU  worth  while  to  light  your  human 
light  most  brilliantly  and  keep  it  trimmed  most  vigi- 
lantly.    Do  you  ask  me  how  ?     Do  you  not  see  that  it 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  11 

is  impossible  for  any  one  to  tell  you  ?  The  sun  or  the 
street  lamp  might  as  well  ask  hoiv  to  light  the  passen- 
ger. Only  shine  toward  yoiu'  brethren's  lives,  only  be 
your  best  in  their  direction.  It  must  be  a  true  epiph- 
any, a  real  showing  of  yourself  to  other  men.  As  dif- 
ferent and  characteristic  as  youi'self  is  will  be  the  light 
you  give  them.  Perhaps  you  will  illustrate  for  them 
some  truth,  perhaps  you  will  inspire  them  with  some 
hope,  perhaps  you  will  teach  them  how  to  do  their  work. 
The  methods  will  decree  themselves  if  only  you,  like 
Christ,  are  what  you  are,  not  for  yourself,  but  for  your 
fellow-men  ;  if  only,  like  Him,  you  have  not  only  an  ad- 
vent and  a  nativity,  but  an  epiphany.  Put  these  two 
texts  together,  for  they  belong  together;  the  same 
Christ  spoke  them :  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  give  his  life  a 
ransom  for  many ; "  and  "As  Thou  hast  sent  Me  into  the 
world,  even  so  have  I  also  sent  them  into  the  world." 

4.  But  we  must  pass  on.  After  the  Advent,  the 
Nativity,  and  the  Epiphany  in  the  Church's  year  comes 
Lent,  with  its  preparation  for  and  culmination  in  Good 
Friday,  opening  suddenly  into  the  glorious  light  of 
Easter  Day.  What  does  this  mean  ?  The  life  of  Jesus,  pre- 
pared for  before  His  birth,  introduced  into  the  world  at 
Bethlehem,  then  brought  into  contact  with  and  influence 
upon  the  lives  of  men,  finally  completes  itself  in  suffer- 
ing. Remember  we  are  speaking  now  about  Christ's 
life  and  death,  not  with  reference  to  the  mysterious 
redemptive  efficacy  that  was  in  it,  but  as  the  great 
human  life,  the  representative  life  that  set  forth  the 
ideal  experience  and  culture  of  a  human  soul.  And 
surely  it  does  not  fail  us  here.     Whatever  else  comes 


12  FIRST   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

to  a  life,  there  is  a  final  grace  and  greatness  which  it 
cannot  have  until  it  has  been  touched  by  pain.  I  do 
not  speak  it  sentimentally.  I  do  not  mean  the  mere 
pathetic  romance  which  gives  a  charm  to  the  story  of 
the  unfortunate.  I  mean  the  very  stuff  and  qualities 
of  our  manhood — those  things  which  make  us  realty 
and  completely  men.  They  are  not  brought  out  in 
their  manliest  vigor  until  we  have  suffered.  Often  the 
suffering  is  of  a  kind  men  do  not  see.  Physical  pain, 
the  sickness  which  makes  one  tremble  as  he  walks,  and 
takes  the  color  from  the  cheek,  is  the  most  evident,  but 
it  is  the  smallest  kind  of  suffering.  But  whenever  you 
have  seen  a  man  leaving  his  crudity  and  childishness 
behind  him  and  really  growing  mature,  however  men 
may  say  carelessly,  "  Oh,  he  has  never  known  what  it  is 
to  suffer,"  you  may  know  better.  That  maturity  of 
character  is  as  sure  a  sign  of  some  healthy  experience 
of  pain,  however  secret,  as  the  brilliancy  and  clearness 
of  a  bit  of  glass  is  of  the  fire  through  which  it  has 
passed.  The  qualities  which  nothing  but  hard  contact 
with  suffering  can  make  are  not  mere  pleasing  graces ; 
they  are  the  completing  qualities  of  manhood,  the  very 
stuff  and  fiber  of  a  man — self-knowledge,  humility,  pa- 
tience, sympathy,  and  a  constant  consciousness  of  God. 
Can  you  have  a  complete  man  without  these,  and  can 
you  have  these  unless  in  some  way  the  man  has  suffered  ? 
This  is  the  reason  why  it  is  so  universal.  You  think 
you  know  exceptions.  But,  my  dear  friend,  what  do 
you  know  about  it  ?  The  men  you  call  exceptions  per- 
haps have  been  the  Y&cy  deepest  in  the  sea  of  pain. 
You  are  pouring  out  your  sympathy  on  some  complain- 
ing grumbler  who  has  lost  a  little  money,  and  thinking 


FraST   SUNDAY   IN   AD^T^NT.  '3 

how  painless  is  the  life  of  a  brave  man  who  refuses  to 
grumble,  but  whose  dearest  hopes  have  been  broken 
into  fi'agments,  and  the  ideals  which  were  his  verj^  life 
all  disappointed.  You  do  not  wrong  him  by  denying 
him  your  petty  sjTnpathy,  but  you  do  wrong  yourself 
in  making  too  much  of  the  little  trouble  and  failing  to 
see  with  what  a  great  manly  education  of  sorrow  God 
is  training  all  His  children. 

"It  became  Him,  for  whom  are  all  things,  and 
by  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto 
glory,  to  make  the  Captain  of  theii*  salvation  perfect 
through  sufferings."  When  the  vase  is  all  shaped  into 
its  strong,  beautiful  form,  when  the  artist's  hand  has 
lavished  its  best  skill  upon  it,  then  it  is  quietly  laid 
into  the  hot  oven.  By  and  by  it  comes  out  with  its 
lines  firm  and  bright,  its  surface  clear  and  brilliant,  its 
colors  fixed  forever.  There  is  a  glory  after  the  pain, 
an  Easter  after  the  Lent ;  but  no  glory  without  the  pain, 
no  Easter  without  the  Lent  of  character.  And  who 
are  we  that  we  should  grow  angry  or  miserable  when 
we  see  that  great  universal  treatment  by  wliich  alone 
the  Son  of  Man  was  made  perfect,  by  which  alone  any 
son  of  man  ever  can  be  made  perfect,  drawing  near  to 
us  or  to  any  one  we  love  among  our  fellow-men  ? 

5.  After  the  Lent  and  Easter  comes  one  stage  more 
— that  which  is  represented  by  Whitsnndcnj,  the  day  of 
the  giving  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  You  remember  what 
Jesus  said  about  the  Holy  Ghost :  ''  He  shall  take  of 
Mine,  and  shall  show  it  unto  you."  It  was  to  be  the 
perpetuated  work  of  Christ.  After  the  suffering  and 
death  were  over,  and  He  was  seen  no  more  upon  the 
earth,  then  His  power  was  really  to  have  but  just  begun. 


14  FIRST   SUNDAY   IN   ADVENT. 

It  should  go  out  and  touch  men  wider  and  deeper  than 
He.  had  ever  done  when  He  was  present  on  the  earth. 
The  epiphany  was  the  influence  of  the  visible  Christ ;  the 
Whitsunday  is  the  influence  of  the  invisible,  ascended 
Christ.  Would  you  call  any  man's  life  a  great  life,  even 
a  true  life,  whose  influence  stopped  the  moment  his 
personal,  seen  presence  was  removed  ?  It  seems  to  me 
as  if  there  were  hardly  any  surer  test  of  the  reality  or 
unreahty,  the  depth  or  superficialness  of  human  power. 
One  man  seems  strong.  Here  in  our  community  it  ap- 
pears as  if  he  were  deciding  what  men  should  do  or  be, 
which  way  events  should  turn.  Some  day  we  read  in 
the  papers  that  that  man  is  dead,  and  from  that  mo- 
ment on  his  power  is  all  gone.  It  is  as  if  he  had  never 
lived.  It  is  as  if  some  hand  had  with  a  single  touch 
shifted  the  machinery  so  that  not  the  smallest  or  most 
insignificant  wheel  thereafter  owned  his  influence. 
"None  so  poor  to  do  him  reverence."  Another  man 
dies,  and  it  is  as  if  death  were  the  revelation  of  his 
force  and  the  beginning  of  his  influence.  Men  did  not 
know  how  they  loved  him  tiU  he  was  taken  away. 
Men  did  not  see  the  stores  of  motive  and  impulse  that 
were  in  his  character  till  the  shell  of  circumstances  was 
broken  through.  In  his  own  circle,  in  the  city  where 
he  lives,  it  seems  as  if  he  were  more  powerful  when  he 
is  seen  no  more  upon  the  streets  than  when  men  met 
him  every  day.  There  has  been,  as  it  were,  a  descent 
of  his  spirit,  a  Pentecost  of  his  departed  presence.  Oh, 
there  are  households  among  you  where  some  son  or 
daughter  who  is  dead  is  stronger  in  the  shaping  of  the 
daily  life  than  an}'  of  the  men  and  women  who  are  stiU 
alive.     His  character  is  at  once  a  standard  and  an  in- 


FIRST   SUNDAY  IN   ADVENT.  15 

spiration.  You  do  what  would  please  him  more  scru- 
pulously  than  when  he  was  alive.  He  conquers  your 
sluggishness  and  corrects  your  wiKulness  and  refines 
your  coarseness  every  day.  To  say  that  he  is  not  mth 
you  is  to  make  companionship  altogether  a  physical, 
not  at  aU  a  spiritual  thing.  To  say  that  he  is  absent 
from  you,  and  that  the  neighbor  of  whom  you  know 
nothing,  for  whom  you  care  nothing,  and  who  cares 
nothing  for  you,  is  present  with  you,  is  to  confuse  aU 
thoughts  of  neighborhood,  to  put  the  false  for  the  true, 
the  superficial  for  the  deep. 

This  is  the  difference  of  men— those  whose  power 
stops  with  their  death,  and  those  whose  power  really 
opens  into  its  true  richness  when  they  die.  The  first 
sort  of  men  have  mechanical  power.  The  second  sort 
of  men  have  spiritual  power.  And  the  final  test  and 
witness  of  spiritual  force  is  seen  in  the  ability  to  cast 
the  bodily  Hfe  away  and  yet  continue  to  give  help  and 
courage  and  wisdom  to  those  who  see  us  no  longer; 
to  be,  like  Christ,  the  helper  of  men's  souls  even  from 
bevond  the  grave. 

i  must  stop  here.  After  Whitsunday  in  the  Church  s 
year  there  come  certain  Sundays  not  nominaUy  but 
really  connected  with  the  life  of  Christ— Trinity  Sun- 
day and  those  that  follow  it.  They  represent,  I  think, 
the  way  in  which  a  great  life  opens  into  aU  the  various 
lessons  of  absolute  truth  and  fiUs  with  its  influence 
every  field  of  duty,  tiU  it  is  absolutely  world-wide  in  its 
range. 

Thus  I  have  traced  along  the  Christian  year  the  his- 
tory that  runs  through  it.     It  sets  up  the  great  human 


16  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

life.  The  building  of  the  perfect  man  is  the  noblesvi 
work  that  can  go  on  in  the  world.  The  seasons  come 
and  go,  the  harvests  ripen  and  are  gathered  in,  the 
mountains  are  built  up  and  decay;  but  all  these  are 
sights  that  cannot  match  in  dignity  and  interest  the 
spectacle  of  a  full,  strong  man's  life.  First  God  pre- 
pares for  him  the  place  where  he  is  to  hve.  Then  his 
life  comes  and  takes  its  place,  a  strong  and  settled  fact. 
Then  it  puts  forth  its  power  and  influences  other  men. 
Then  suffering  comes  to  it  and  matures  it,  but  finally 
it  issues  out  of  suffering,  refined  and  triumphant.  And 
at  last,  when  it  has  passed  away  out  of  the  world  into 
new  regions  of  activity  and  growth,  it  leaves  its  power 
behind  it  to  bless  men  after  it  is  dead.  There  is  noth- 
ing so  round  and  perfect  as  such  a  life  in  all  the  world. 
It  is  the  very  crown  of  God's  creation. 

Such  a  complete  life  is  pictured  in  the  Church's  year. 
It  has  its  Advent,  Nativity,  Epiphany,  Lent,  Easter, Whit- 
sun  day.  Trinity  Sunday.  It  fills  the  year  with  its  increas- 
ing, slowly  maturing  beauty.  This  is  the  true  meaning 
of  the  year,  with  all  its  sacred  seasons.  Let  us  be  true 
Churchmen  and  give  it  all  its  richness.  Only,  dear 
friends,  we  do  not  really  honor  the  venerable  beauty  of 
the  Church's  calendar  when  we  make  it  a  badge  of  our 
denominational  distinction,  or  deck  its  seasons  out 
with  all  the  trickery  of  colored  altar-cloths,  piu-ple  and 
white  and  green,  but  when  we  see  in  it  the  stor}-  of  a 
human  life  slowly  ripened  from  God's  first  purpose  to 
the  full-grown,  glorified  manhood  standing  before  God's 
presence  and  sending  forth  God's  power  to  its  fellow- 
men. 

We  do  not  dishonor  the  humanity  of  Jesus  when  we 


FIRST   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  17 

thus  make  it  the  type  of  what  ours  may  be.  He  wanted 
and  He  loves  to  have  us  use  it  so.  "  As  I  am,  so  are  ye 
in  this  world,"  He  declared.  Only  remember  He  is  not 
only  pattern,  but  power.  We  must  be  like  Him,  but 
we  cannot  be,  save  as  He  makes  us.  We  must  come  to 
Him,  but  we  can  only  come  to  Him  by  His  grace  and 
help. 

Standing  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  year, 
remembering  how  He  came  to  redeem  us  all  unto 
Himself,  let  us  pray  for  ourselves  and  one  another 
that  the  perfect  manhood  which  we  see  stretching  down 
that  year  may  be  complete  in  each  of  us ;  that  we  may 
be  led  as  our  Lord  was  led  through  every  stage  of 
growth,  till  we  too  enter  into  the  gloiy  of  God  and 
leave  the  spirit  of  our  life  behind  us  to  be  a  live  bless- 
ing to  our  brethren  when  we  are  what  they  call  dead. 
This  be  our  Advent  prayer. 


IL 

SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

"  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him  not.  But 
as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power  to  become  the 
sons  of  God." — John  i.  11,  12. 

Who  was  it  that  came  ?  Who  was  it  whose  coming 
is  thus  described  ?  Everybody  knows  who,  as  child  or 
man,  has  read  the  first  chapter  of  St,  John,  in  which 
these  words  occur.  It  was  the  *' Word,"  which  ''was 
made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us."  It  was  the  Word 
which  was  "with  God  in  the  beginning,"  and  which 
"  was  God."  It  was  Jesus  Christ.  The  words,  then,  take 
us  instantly  into  connection  with  an  event  with  which 
no  other  can  compare.  Whatever  our  growing  wis- 
dom learns  that  is  marvelous  about  the  past  history  of 
our  planet,  of  the  tremendous  forces  that  have  been 
at  work  upon  its  structure,  and  the  strange,  splendid 
deeds  that  men  have  done  upon  its  surface,  this  one 
event  in  its  long  life — that  God  came  here,  that  divine 
feet  trod  upon  its  gi-ound,  and  a  divine  voice  spoke 
with  its  breath — must  forever  stand  out  bright  and 
high  above  everything.  Just  as  in  an  old  nobleman's 
palace,  where  all  kinds  of  life  have  flowed  along  for 
centuries,  where  men  and  women  have  lived  and  loved 
and  worked,  been  born,  married,  and  died,  where  splen- 

18 


SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  19 

did  deeds  have  been  done  and  splendid  lives  been  lived, 
there  still  shines  out  above  all  others  one  day,  centuries 
ago,  when  a  king  was  its  guest,  so  in  the  world's  history- 
there  can  be  no  time  to  compare  with  that  in  which 
Divinity  came  here.  The  whole  world  that  knows  about 
the  coming  dates  its  whole  life  from  it.  Such  is  the 
splendor  and  importance  of  the  advent  of  Jesus  Clirist. 

In  speaking  of  Christ's  advent  to-day  I  should 
like  to  be  led  by  the  verse  of  St.  John  which  I  have 
quoted :  "  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received 
Him  not.  But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave 
He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God."  And  it  will  lead 
me  to  speak  first  of  the  fact,  then  of  the  purpose,  and 
then  of  the  result  of  the  Incarnation.  What  is  there 
that  a  man  can  speak  to  men  about  that  can  come  to 
and  take  hold  of  the  soul  of  him  who  speaks  and  them 
who  hear  like  the  story  of  God  manifest  in  a  human 
flesh  and  life  like  ours  ?  I  bespeak  your  attention  and 
interest. 

1.  First,  then,  we  speak  of  the  fact  of  the  advent. 
God  came  to  man.  What  do  we  mean  by  that?  Evi- 
dently, I  answer  first,  something  separate  and  peculiar ; 
evidently  something  definite  and  different  from  any- 
thing that  there  had  been  in  the  world  before.  We 
mean  some  preeminent  and  distinctive  coming.  For 
God  had  not  been  absent  or  foreign  before.  He  had 
labored  in  every  way  to  make  men  know  that  He  was 
with  them.  And  He  had  come  to  them  with  clear  and 
certain  exhibitions  of  Himself.  Always,  at  the  very 
outset  let  us  say,  when  we  speak  of  God's  coming  to 
man  it  is  not  in  any  sense  which  implies  that  He  had 
not  been  with  them  always.     It  is  a  coming,  not  of  ap- 


20  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

proach,  but  of  manifestation;  not  such  an  approach  as 
the  sun  makes  when  it  rolls  up  in  the  morning  from 
the  under- world,  but  such  as  it  makes  when  it  scatters 
the  cloud  and  shows  us  where  its  glory  shines.     And 
even  in  this  sense  of  manifestation  God  had  come  to 
men  before.     Some  people  ask  about  the  Incarnation. 
What  does  it  mean  ?     You  say  it  was  God  speaking  to 
man.      Had  not  God  always  been  speaking  to  man? 
Are  there  not  two  eternal  voices  which  have  never  been 
silent  for  an  instant — the  voice  of  God  in  His  works     | 
and  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man  ?     Many  peo-     | 
pie,  I  believe,  pecuharly  alive  to  these  great  voices  of     i 
God,  hearing  them  all  the  time,  listening  to  them  al- 
ways, think  it  strange  when  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  is 
set  forth  as  the  utterance  of  God  to  man.     It  seems  to 
them  almost  to  dishonor  and  insult  those  rich  and  con- 
stant messages  which  they  have  always  been  receiving     i 
from  the  works  around  that  told  them  of  the  Maker,      « 
and  the  child-heart  within  that  told  them  of  the  Father. 
These  messages  of  God  we  want  to  assert  most  strongly. 
They  are  very  real.     We  cannot  listen  to  them  too  de- 
voutly.     But  it  does  seem  to  me  that  very  often  just 
the  man  who  listens  most  devoutly  to  these  messages     i 
is  the  man  who  comes  to  feel  the  need  of  another  mes-      ^ 
sage  out  beyond  these,  the  man  who  sighs  and  cries  for 
something  more.     You  are  impressed  with  the  truth 
that  all  the  world  is  an  utterance  of  the  Almighty.    Its 
countless  beauties,  its  exquisite  adaptations,  all  speak 
to  you  of  him.     You  sit  and  listen,  and  it  seems,  now 
that  these  lips  have  been  opened  and  all  the  universe 
is  vocal,  as  if  there  were  nothing  left  between  you  and 
God  to  desire.     Listen  and  listen  on  and  vou  wiU  learn 


SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  21 

everything.  But  by  and  bj''  you  certainly  come  to  an 
end  of  that  utterance.  By  and  by  you  have  reached 
the  limit  beyond  which  you  are  sure  that  there  is  some- 
thing which  sky  and  land  and  ocean  cannot  tell.  The 
message  is  imperfect.  It  gives  you  glimpses  of  Pur- 
pose, Wisdom,  even  Benevolence,  and  a  profound  impres- 
sion of  Power,  but  all  is  inai-ticulate  and  stops  far  short 
of  perfect  knowledge  of  the  Person  of  the  God  who 
speaks.  And  then  you  seem  to  discover  another  fuller 
voice  of  God.  He  speaks  to  you  through  great  men. 
Prophets  and  sages  and  saints  are  His  utterances.  Their 
lives  transmit  His  being.  That  is  a  vast  discovery.  It 
opens  the  ear  and  sets  the  heart  to  quicker  beating. 
*^  Now,"  you  say,  "  I  shall  know  God."  But  there,  too, 
comes  disappointment.  No  great  man  is  quite  great 
enough.  No  good  man  is  quite  good  enough.  Each 
miKCs  himself  with  the  message  that  he  brings.  His 
own  partialness  and  imperfectness  is  in  it.  You  have 
not  fully  heard  God  yet.  And  then  comes  one  hope 
more.  Disappointed  outside  yourself,  you  are  sitting 
despondent,  perhaps,  when  suddenly  the  voice  begins  to 
speak  within  you.  Here  it  is  right  in  your  heart.  What 
is  true,  what  is  good,  is  being  uttered  from  the  oracle 
within.  A  solemn  awe  and  a  deep  delight  in  himself 
come  to  the  man  who  hears  that  voice.  Now  let  the 
world  be  as  disturbed  and  disappointing  as  it  may,  how 
can  it  harm  him  ?  He  carries  the  voice  with  him.  It 
is  the  clearer  the  more  solitary  he  is.  At  last  God  cer- 
tainly has  come.  Alas  !  I  need  not  tell  you  of  that  dis- 
appointment. You  have  not  come  to  doubt  the  voice 
of  God  within  you — God  forbid  that  you  ever  should. 
But  you  have  learned  that  youi*  own  inner  self  is  fuU 


22  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

of  confusions  and  contradictions.  You  have  been 
deceived.  You  have  taken  your  own  passions  for  the 
voice  of  God  until  you  are  afraid  to  trust  implicitly 
even  that  conscience  which  you  reverence.  You  know 
yourself  too  well  to  think  that  through  that  seK  the 
highest  and  richest  voice  of  God  can  utter  itself  to  you. 
And  what  then  f  Listening  to  all  these  voices,  we  have 
not  yet  heard  all  that  God  has  to  say.  Opening  all 
these  doors,  it  has  not  wholly  come  to  us.  The  soul,  as  I 
said,  that  has  most  tried  and  so  most  known  the  in- 
sufficiency of  all  these  other  ministries  is  the  readiest 
to  welcome  the  new  mercy  as  just  that  which  it  needs, 
when  at  last  there  is  another  coming,  an  objective  and 
historic  fact,  something  recognizable  and  clear,  the 
visible  appearance  of  Divinity  itself,  so  that  those  who 
had  seen  God's  works  and  heard  some  of  His  words  and 
felt  some  of  His  movements  now  saw  Him  not  merely 
speaking  to  humanity,  but  present  in  humanit}^ — God 
manifest  in  the  flesh. 

I  think  that  we  can  understand  how  the  Incarnation 
was  something  new  and  different  in  the  relationship  of 
God  and  man  if  we  think  about  our  own  relations  to 
our  friends.  My  absent  friend  comes  to  me  every  day 
in  very  true,  important  senses.  The  works  that  he  has 
done  are  all  around  me.  I  see  his  hand  in  every  arrange- 
ment for  my  comfort  which  his  care  and  money  have 
provided.  That  is  one  coming.  And  every  day  when 
the  door  opens  and  some  mutual  friend  comes  in,  some 
one  who  knows  him  and  loves  him  and  has  caught  his 
character,  it  is  as  if  my  absent  friend  himself  stepped 
across  the  threshold.  That  is  another  coming.  And 
yet  again,  when  I  look  into  my  own  heart  and  find  my 


SECOND  SUNDAY  EN  ADVENT.  23 

friend  there,  when  he  speaks  to  me  in  tastes  that  he  has 
cultivated  and  standards  that  I  have  learned  from  him, 
when  he  speaks  to  me  out  of  my  own  self  filled  with 
him  by  love,  there  is  another  coming.  But  with  all 
these  still  he  is  dim  to  me ;  I  cannot  feel  him,  I  cannot 
find  him.  But  some  day,  as  I  sit  there  trying  to  appre- 
hend him,  the  door  opens  and  he  himself  comes  in — 
with  the  face  I  know,  with  the  smile  I  love,  with  the 
step  that  always  made  my  heart  beat.  There  he  is  him- 
self 5  now  he  has  really  come.  Not  that  the  old  com- 
ings do  not  help  me  still ;  not  that  I  do  not  see  new 
meaning  in  his  face  because  of  all  the  study  I  have 
given  to  his  works  and  all  the  hours  I  have  talked  with 
my  own  heart  about  liim,  trying  to  find  him  there ;  but 
here  he  is  himseK — no  longer  through  a  glass  darkly, 
but  now  face  to  face.  Now  if  the  Incarnation  is  really 
as  separate  and  new  a  method  of  knowledge  as  that, 
then  it  is  not  strange  that  it  should  stand  out  so  in  his- 
tory. *'  He  sent  unto  them  other  servants  more  than  the 
first,  but  last  of  all  He  sent  unto  them  His  Son."  It  is 
not  merely  a  fuUer  and  easier  way  to  receive  the  old 
messages — not  merely  an  improvement  of  machineries  so 
that  they  could  more  perfectly  communicate  the  person 
who  stood  behind  them.  It  was  a  getting  rid  of  messen- 
gers. It  was  the  sweeping  of  machineries  aside,  and  by 
a  new  and  living  way  bringing  those  whom  the  very 
methods  of  their  communication  had  separated  from 
one  another,  God  and  man,  close  together,  face  to  face 
and  heart  to  heart. 

I  have  been  anxious  thus  to  state  the  true  character 
and  show  the  real  importance  of  the  Incarnation  be- 
cause only  so  can  we  properly  understand  and  believe, 


24  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

by  getting  into  the  spirit  of,  that  circle  of  miraculous 
events  which  group  about  the  coming  of  oiu'  Lord. 
There  are  two  things  about  the  whole  history  of  the 
advent  of  Christ  which  will  be  constantly  presented  to 
our  thoughts  during  these  next  few  weeks.  One  is  its 
miraculotisness  and  the  other  is  its  quietness.  He  came 
girt  round  with  wonders,  and  He  came  so  gently,  so 
unnoticed  save  by  the  few  who  clustered  nearest  to  His 
life,  that  the  great  surface  of  the  world's  existence  was 
hardly  rippled  by  the  wonderful  touch  that  had  fallen 
upon  it.  Of  the  first  of  these  chai'acteristics  of  the 
advent — its  miraculousness — we  are  sui-e  that  the 
credibility  will  be  more  clear  to  us  if  we  have  really 
felt  how  vast  was  the  importance  and  how  great  was 
the  necessity  of  the  event.  If  ever  miracle  might  be 
let  loose  out  of  the  rigid  hand  of  law,  when  should  it 
be  but  now,  when  the  King  of  all  the  laws  is  coming 
in  his  personality  ?  If  there  are  angels,  now  certainly 
is  the  time  for  them  to  appear.  If  the  stars  can  ever 
have  a  message  and  lead  men,  now  is  the  time  when 
their  ministry  can  plead  its  strongest  warrant.  If  ever 
the  thin  veil  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural 
may  break  asunder,  it  must  be  now,  when  the  super- 
natural power  enters  into  earthly  Hfe  and  God  is  pres- 
ent among  the  sons  of  men.  To  any  one  who  believes 
in  the  possibility  of  miracle  at  all,  and  who  knows  what 
the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation  is,  the  wonder  would  be 
if  it  had  no  miraculous  accompaniment.  The  breakage 
through  the  ordinary  laws  of  nature's  life  seems  natural 
and  fitting,  as  when  a  king  passes  thi'ough  a  city  we 
expect  to  hear  trumpets  and  cannon  replace  the  com- 
mon sounds  of  trade  and  domestic  life  which  are  all 


SECOND   SUNDAY   LN  ADVENT.  25 

that  its  streets  commonly  echo.  But  then  along  with 
the  miraculousness  comes  an  impressive  quietness. 
Quiet  even  to  homeliness  will  be  the  simple  scenery  on 
which  the  supernatui-al  light  is  thrown.  The  village 
inn,  the  carpenter's  household,  the  groups  of  peasants 
— all  is  as  simple  as  the  story  of  a  peasant's  childhood. 
With  wonderful  power,  but  with  wonderful  stillness 
— no  noise,  no  tumult.  Surely  such  a  description  falls 
in  with  the  spiritual  intention  of  the  event.  It  is  a 
spiritual  miracle,  and  the  miracles  of  spiritual  life  are 
always  as  still  as  they  are  powerful,  as  powerful  as 
they  are  stiU.  So  the  whole  nature  of  the  advent  was 
written  in  the  historical  circumstances  that  were 
grouped  around  the  great  historic  fact. 

In  speaking  thus  of  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation  I  beg 
you  to  observe  that  I  speak  only  of  its  manward 
aspects.  It  is  what  it  does  for  man  and  how  it  seems 
to  man  that  we  are  able  to  consider.  All  the  other 
side  of  it — of  how  it  seems  to  God,  of  what  it  is  in  the 
natui*e  of  the  Godhead — of  all  that  who  can  say  any- 
thing ?  If  any  man  begins  to  tell  me  anything  about 
aU  that  I  turn  away  from  him  without  interest.  He ; 
cannot  hi»w,  and  it  is  a  subject  on  which  I  do  not  want , 
his  speculations.  I  can  see  the  sunlight  in  its  wonderful ; 
works.  It  may  bring  me  messages,  as  it  has  brought 
to  our  newest  science,  about  the  nature  of  the  sun  ;  but 
of  how  the  sun  issues  the  sunlight  and  sends  it  forth 
no  eagle  eye  has  looked  near  enough  upon  the  sun  to 
see.  Men  talk,  sometimes,  about  the  difficulties  of  the 
Incarnation.  I  do  not  know  what  difficulty  means  to 
an  Omnipotence  to  which  nothing  is  impossible  save 
what  is  wrong.    I  do  not  know  but  incarnation  is  the 


26  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

easy  and  natural  effort  of  Divinity  toward  humanity. 
Whatever  is  loving  and  good  is  easy  enough  to  God. 
Whatever  is  wrong  only  is  impossible.  And  so  the 
loving  redemption  of  his  world,  the  coming  to  His  chil- 
dren that  they  might  be  able  to  come  to  Him,  cannot 
have  been  hard.  I  do  not  know  how  to  stagger  at  its 
difficulty. 

2.  And  this  leads  us  to  speak  not  only  of  the  fact,  but 
of  the  purpose  of  the  Incarnation.  Let  us  pass  on  to 
that.  St.  John  says  of  the  divine  Word,  not  merely 
that  He  came,  but  that  He  came  "  unto  His  own."  Those 
words,  as  it  will  come  into  our  way  to  say  by  and  by, 
have  primary  reference  to  the  Jewish  people.  But 
those  Jews  were  tj'pical.  Christ  came  to  them  only  as 
to  the  doorway  through  which  He  might  enter  into 
humanity.  And  so  when  it  is  said  that  Christ  came  to 
His  otvn,  it  is  all  humanity  that  stands  crowded  in  be- 
hind the  Jews  and  claims  the  name.  And  it  is  in  this 
statement  that  all  humanity  is  Christ's  otim  that  the 
real  meaning  and  purpose  of  the  Incarnation  lie  in- 
volved. That  statement  that  all  men  are  Christ's  own 
seems  to  me  to  contain  two  truths,  both  of  them  full  of 
loftiness  and  inspiration.     What  a^e  they  ? 

The  first  truth  is  the  essential  unity  of  man's  life  and 
God's,  and  so  the  essential  glory  of  humanity.  Christ 
came  not  merely  to  man,  but  info  man;  and  that  was 
possible  because  the  manhood  into  which  He  entered 
was  "  His  own,"  had  original  and  fundamental  unity 
with  His  Godhood,  was  made  in  the  image  of  God. 
Here  was  man,  made  in  God's  image,  separated  from 
God,  trying  spasmodically  to  struggle  back,  faihng  and 


SECOND  SUNDAY   EN  ADVENT.  27 

falling  so  continually  that  the  consciousness  that  lie 
belonged  with  God  was  well-nigh  lost.  That  it  might 
not  be  lost,  that  it  might  be  a  real  and  living  thing,  it 
must  be  asserted  from  the  other  side.  Man  and  God 
had  the  capacity  of  entrance  into  each  other.  Since 
man  would  not,  and,  as  it  almost  seemed  now,  could  not 
enter  into  God,  God  would  enter  into  man.  Man  had 
faded  of  being  godlike ;  God,  then,would  be  manlike,  and  ' 
so  the  fii'st  truth — that  God  and  man  belonged  together 
— should  not  be  lost  for  want  of  assertion.  Is  not  this 
a  noble  and  inspii'ing  value  of  the  Incarnation  ?  I  can- 
not help  thinking  that  the  man  to  whom  it  seems  in- 
credible that  God  should  have  been  made  man  is  not 
so  likely  to  have  been  misled  by  a  peculiar  reverence 
for  God  as  by  an  unworthy  estimate  of  man.  He  has 
seen  the  degradation  of  everything.  He  has  seen  how 
low  the  passions  grovel.  He  has  taken  things  as  he 
sees  them  and  lost  sight  of  their  ideals.  He  has  seen 
the  mercenariness  of  friendship,  the  squalor  of  home, 
the  animalness  of  love — everything  sunk  do^oi  out  of 
its  nobleness ;  and  he  has  said,  "  There  is  no  place  for 
God  here.  It  would  degrade  Him  to  become  man,  man 
being  thus."  Ah,  brethren,  if  we  could  only  begin  at 
the  other  end !  God  did  become  man,  and  therefore 
manhood  must  be  essentially  capacious  of  Divinity. 
He  lived  in  a  human  home,  and  so  our  homes  must  })e 
capable  of  a  Divinity  they  do  not  have.  He  entered 
into  fi'iendships,  and  so  friendship  must  be  sacred.  He 
worked,  and  so  work  must  be  honorable.  He  cared 
for  the  body  that  He  lived  in,  and  so  the  bodj  cannot 
be  so  vile  as  men  have  called  it  and  as  we  make  it.    If 


28  SECOND   SUNDAY   IN  ADVENT. 

this  could  be  the  way  the  Incarnation  came  to  us,  then 
surely  it  must  be  a  constant  inspiration  to  us  that  it 
was  "  His  own  "  to  whom  Christ  came. 

I  cannot  stop  to  tell  you  what  I  am  sure  that  many 
of  you  must  know — how  real  this  belonging  between 
God  and  humanity  becomes  to  a  man  at  the  time  of  his 
own  conversion.  God  stands  far  off  from  you,  and  you 
think  that  you  have  nothing  to  do  with  Him.  You 
send  Him  duty-prayers  as  if  you  shot  arrows  into  the 
darkness,  toward  a  voice  which  you  are  not  wholly  cer- 
tain that  you  hear.  By  and  by  that  God  comes  to  j^ou ; 
and  the  surprise  of  all  surprises  in  conversion  is  to  see 
how  your  heart  knows  Him  and  opens  and  hfts  itself 
to  take  Him  in.  "  My  beloved  is  mine,  and  I  am  His,"  it 
says,  with  surprised  and  sudden  recognition.  Christ 
has  come  "  unto  His  own." 

But  there  is  a  yet  closer  and  tenderer  meaning  of 
these  words,  I  think.  They  mean  that  Christ  came 
in  answer  to  a  most  urgent  and  pressing  call  of  need. 
That  is  what  it  signifies  when  it  is  said  that  "  He  came 
unto  His  owny  For  in  a  true  sense  everything  is  a  man's 
own  which  needs  that  man ;  not  everything  which  he 
needs,  but  everything  which  needs  him.  Do  you  not 
know  what  that  is  ?  Your  child  is  j^ours  not  merely 
by  the  claim  of  birth  and  nature,  but  by  the  tie  of  con- 
tinual dependence.  He  is  most  yours  when  he  needs 
you  most.  He  is  never  so  much  yours  as  when  he 
requires  your  forgiveness  for  some  sin.  He  ceases  in 
part  to  be  yours  as  he  outgrows  his  most  urgent  need 
of  you.  So  the  charitable  man  or  woman  talks  about 
"m?/  poor."  So  the  teacher  talks  about  "wy  boys." 
Eveiywhere  that  is  youi's  which  needs  you.     I  pity  the 


SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  29 

man  who  does  not  know  the  responsibility  and  privilege 
of  that  high  sort  of  ownership.  It  is  a  most  sacred 
claim  npon  another  to  go  to  a  poor  helpless  ereatm-e 
and  say,  "You  need  me.  I  wiU  help  you.  You  are 
mine."  Now  when  it  is  said  that  Jesus  came  to  His 
own,  is  not  this  at  least  part  of  the  meaning  ?  He  came 
to  those  who  needed  Him ;  most  of  all  to  those  who 
from  the  stricken  earth  held  up  to  Him  the  deepest  of 
all  needs,  the  need  of  sin  that  craved  forgiveness ;  and 
that  was  what  made  them  His.  Certainly  no  level-eyed 
intercourse  of  sinless  man  with  sinless  Christ  could 
have  wrought  in  us  such  a  profound  and  precious  sense 
that  we  belong  to  Him  as  this  simple  knowledge  that 
we  need  Him.  Need  has  its  sacred  rights.  Because  we 
want  forgiveness  and  help,  and  He  only  can  forgive  and 
help  us,  therefore  we  are  His. 

How  clearly  this  shines  out  in  those  typical  men 
and  women  of  the  Gospel  stories !  How  closely  they 
became  Christ's  by  merely  needing  Him !  How  He 
acknowledged  their  claim !  The  sinning  woman  who 
crept  in  and  touched  the  hem  of  His  garment  was  com- 
pletely His ;  she  commanded  with  a  perfect  freedom  His 
sjTnpathy  and  time  and  care  simply  because  she  was  so 
wretched  and  could  not  do  without  Him.  The  poor 
man  to  whom  He  gave  sight,  and  whom  the  Pharisees 
turned  out  of  the  synagogue,  laid  hold  of  Christ  immedi- 
ately, and  Christ  acknowledged  him  as  one  of  His  be- 
cause he  could  not  do  without  Him.  And  who  among 
the  apostles  was  more  perfectly  Christ's  own  than  Simon 
Peter,  whom  Christ  was  always  answering  and  saving 
in  extremest  need  ? 

Need  I  say  more  about  the  meaning  and  the  pur- 


30  SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  AD\TENT. 

pose  of  the  Incarnation  1  Put  these  two  ideas  together. 
Jesus  "  came  unto  His  own."  To  men  forgetful  of  their 
godlike  nature  He  came  to  tell  them  that  they  were  the 
sons  of  God ;  and  to  men  who  could  not  do  without  Him 
He  came  because  they  needed  Him.  Oh,  my  dear  friends, 
by  what  high  warrants  does  the  Saviour  claim  us  for 
His  own!  Because  we  are  His  Father's  children,  and 
because  we  are  so  needy,  therefore  our  divine  Brother 
comes.  He  comes  to  you  and  says,  "You  called  Me." 
And  you  look  up  out  of  your  worldliness  and  say,  "  Oh 
no  !  I  did  not  call.  I  do  not  know  You !  "  But  He  says, 
calmly,  "You  did,  although  you  do  not  know  it.  That 
power  of  being  godlike  which  is  in  you,  crushed  and 
unsatisfied — that  summoned  Me;  and  that  need  of 
being  forgiven  and  renewed  which  you  will  not  own — 
that  summoned  Me.  And  here  I  am !  Now  wilt  thou 
be  made  whole?  If  thou  canst  believe,  all  things  are 
possible  to  him  that  beheveth."  Just  as  all  through  the 
crowds  of  Jerusalem  there  must  have  been  many  who 
walked  with  a  sense  that  they  peculiarly  belonged  to 
the  great  Healer — one  with  his  healed  arm  that  once 
was  withered,  another  with  the  new-given  sight  in  his 
eyes,  another  with  his  body  yet  missing  the  long  pos- 
session of  the  demon  who  was  cast  out  yesterday,  each 
with  some  need  which  had  been  recognized  and  sup- 
plied— so  through  this  congregation  there  are  many 
who  rejoice  that  they  are  Christ's.  They  needed  Him 
and  He  owned  their  need.  He  took  them.  He  forgave 
them,  He  holds  them,  and  nothing  shall  pluck  them  out 
of  His  hands. 

3.  We  turn,  then,  in  a  few  last  words,  to  describe,  if 
we  can,  the  result  of  the  Incarnation  as  it  is  pictured  in 


SECOND   SUNDAY   IN  ADVENT.  31 

this  great  descriptive  verse.  There  are  two  classes. 
"  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him  not. 
But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power 
to  become  the  sons  of  God."  Those  who  received  Him 
and  those  who  refused  Him.  Here  we  are  come  to  a 
division  in  the  multitude,  which  so  far  has  been  all  one. 
All  sons  of  Grod  and  all  needing  Christ,  He  came  to  them 
all,  and  some  of  them  rejected  Him.  Here,  as  I  said, 
there  is  a  primary  reference  to  Jewish  history.  In  these 
ten  words,  as  if  with  one  broad  dash  upon  the  wall,  is 
sketched  that  tragedy  which  surpasses  any  other  tragi- 
cal passage  in  national  history.  It  is  the  story  of  the 
Jewish  people,  chosen,  privileged,  obstinate,  rebellious, 
ruined.  But  here  again  they  are  only  representatives. 
These  words,  "  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  re- 
ceived Him  not,"  are  an  assertion  of  the  awful  ultimate- 
ness  of  the  power  of  free  will  in  man.  Behind  everything 
else  that  settles  a  man's  destiny  there  lies  the  power  of  his 
own  decision  whether  all  that  is  done  upon  him  and 
done  for  him  shall  be  effectual  or  not.  How  absolute 
and  terrible  that  power  is  !  Not  even  Grod's  coming  to 
a  soul  that  belongs  to  God  is  so  necessarily  powerful 
that  the  man  may  not  resist  and  in  his  obstinacy  turn 
away.  Men  have  discussed  this  veiy  much  indeed. 
They  have  taken  their  sides.  Some  have  constituted 
themselves  champions  of  God's  power.  Some  have 
buckled  on  their  armor  in  defense  of  man's  free  will. 
The  battle  has  gone  on,  and  aU  the  time,  as  it  so  often 
is  the  case,  the  question  that  men  were  quarrehng  to 
settle  theoretically  was  working  itself  out  practically 
everywhere  without  their  aid.  The  fight  gees  on  and 
the  field  lies  calm  under  the  fighters'  feet.    For  always 


32  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

these  two,  God's  power  and  man's  will,  have  lived 
along  together,  God's  power  yielding  to  nothing  hut 
the  rebellious  will  of  man,  and  man's  will  able  to  set 
itself  even  against  the  will  of  God.  Certainly,  as  I  look 
round  on  men  and  see  the  signs  which  I  am  always  see- 
ing— signs  of  divineness  and  signs  of  brutishness,  signs 
of  heavenliness  and  signs  of  earthliness,  movements  of 
God  and  movements  of  self  all  mixed  up  together — 
when  I  see  man  tempted  everywhere  by  God  to  better 
things,  yet  everywhere  able  to  bind  himself  down  to 
what  is  low,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  no  words  were  ever 
written  which  so  completely  told  the  story  as  these  old 
words  of  John  :  "  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  re- 
ceived Him  not."  Not  a  soul  unvisited  of  God — truly 
man  is  not  that ;  a  soul  always  claimed  by  the  highest, 
and  only  by  its  own  choice  giving  itself  away  to  the 
lowest.  That  is  the  seriousness  and  solemnity  of  Ad- 
vent-time. Christ's  invitations  force  us  to  self -decisions. 
He  comes  to  us,  and  we  must  accept  Him  or  refuse  Him. 
"  For  judgment  I  am  come  into  this  world,"  He  declared. 
But  turn  to  the  other  side :  "As  many  as  received 
Him,  to  them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 
There  is  no  time  here,  at  a  sermon's  very  end,  to  tell 
what  the  whole  blessing  of  the  Incarnation  is  to  those  to 
whom  it  brings  its  richest  fruits.  But  there  are  some 
texts  in  the  Bible  which,  if  you  simply  let  them  rest  in 
your  mind,  floating  on  the  waves  of  your  experience, 
will  open  their  meaning  gradual!}'-  to  your  conscious- 
ness. This  text  is  one  of  them :  If  you  receive  Christ, 
you  shall  be  a  son  of  God.  "  Ah,  but,"  you  say,  a  little 
puzzled,  "  I  always  have  been  God's  child.  I  was  made 
so.    I  always  have  been  so."    Have  you,  my  dear  friend  1 


SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  33 

Were  you  indeed  God's  child  in  those  unchildlike  hours 
and  years  when  you  went  your  own  proud  way  without 
humility  and  without  a  prayer  ?  Were  you  God's  child 
when  you  forgot  youi'  Father  and  lived  as  if  your  own 
will  were  your  only  law  ?  Were  you  God's  child  then  ? 
"  Yes,"  you  say.  "  Rebellious  as  I  was,  rebellious  as  I 
am,  I  am  God's  child  still.  Nothing  can  disinherit  me. 
He  is  my  Father."  And  you  are  right.  The  privileges 
of  yom*  creation,  the  possibilities  of  your  relation  to 
Divinity,  nothing  has  destroyed.  But  oh,  my  friend,  if 
some  one  were  to  come  and  bring  that  Father  to  you 
with  such  convincing  evidence  of  His  love  that  all  your 
indifference  and  rebellion  should  go  down,  and  you 
should  find  yourself  thorouglily  at  your  Father's  feet, 
claiming  your  long-neglected  sonship,  calling  Him 
"  Father,"  and  begging  Him  to  take  and  rule  and  lift 
your  life — tell  me,  would  it  not  be  right  and  just  to  say 
of  him  who  did  this  for  you  that  he  gave  you  power  to 
become  a  son  of  God  ?  Would  you  not  say  of  him  that 
he  gave  you  back  your  Father  ?  This  is  what  the  Re- 
deemer does.  He  takes  the  native  capacity  and  trains 
it  into  a  live  and  active  fact.  He  rebuilds  the  broken 
bridge.  So  He  is  our  great  Pontifex,  our  great  High 
Priest,  bringing  God  and  man  together;  once  more 
opening  a  channel  through  which  the  hindered  and  im- 
patient love  of  God  may  flow,  and  once  more  opening 
the  powers  in  man  that  can  respond  to  that  love ;  so 
reconstructing  the  family  in  heaven  and  earth ;  giving 
back  the  Father  to  the  childi-en  and  the  cliildren  to  the 
Father;  making  God  man's  Father,  giving  man  the 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God. 

The  sons  of  God — that  is  what  we  want  to  be.     We 


34  SECOND   SUNDAY   IN  ADVENT, 

can  be  that  by  the  power  of  the  Incarnation.  If  we 
accept  Christ  He  will  teach  us  His  truth,  He  will  give  us 
His  law,  He  wiU  help  us  to  obey  it.  To  us,  become 
obedient,  He  will  unfold  His  nature  more  and  more.  He 
will  show  Himself  to  us.  We  shall  see  Him,  and,  as  He 
said  Himself,  he  who  has  seen  Him  has  seen  the  Father. 
That  is  the  salvation  of  the  incarnate  Christ. 


I 


III. 

THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

"  He  was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness  of  that 
Light."— John  i.  8. 

"  Where  does  the  power  come  from  ? "  is  the  natural 
question  always  when  we  are  watching  any  strong  effect. 
"  Where  did  it  begin  ? "  we  curiously  ask  as  we  stand  by 
the  side  of  any  process  and  watch  its  steady  flow.  What 
pleasure  is  greater  on  a  summer's  day  than  to  trace  a 
mountain  brook  back  along  its  bed,  keeping  up-stream, 
seeing  it  grow  thinner  and  thinner,  until  at  last  we  find 
it  issuing  from  the  hidden  spring  under  the  high  crest 
of  the  hill ;  or  to  track  a  mechanical  process  back 
through  a  great  factory,  from  the  hammer  that  strikes 
the  anvil  to  the  boUer  that  makes  the  steam ;  or,  most 
of  all,  to  follow  a^  series  of  human  activities  along  the 
chain  of  influences  that  bind  each  man's  action  to  the 
one  before  it  as  lakes  are  strung  upon  a  silver  stream, 
until  at  last  we  come  to  some  strong  man  whose  act 
seems  to  have  had  no  father-act  behind  it,  but  to  have 
started  out  of  the  creative  fountain  of  his  own  strong 
will?  Such  search  for  the  seats  of  original  power  is 
among  the  first  instincts  and  the  keenest  pleasures  of 
the  human  mind.  And  when  such  a  source  of  power 
is  found,  then  the  human  soul  bows  down  before  it  and 

35 


36  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

pours  out  its  reverence.  All  idolatry  is  merely  the 
giving  to  some  secondary  cause  that  virtue  and  regard 
which  can  belong  only  to  the  Highest  and  First  Cause : 
to  worship  the  sun  instead  of  the  God  who  makes  him 
shine ;  to  deify  a  hero  or  sage  into  the  place  of  the  God 
who  makes  him  brave  or  wise ;  to  glorify  an  abstract 
virtue  until  it  sits  cloudily  in  the  place  of  the  distinct 
personal  God  in  whose  nature  all  virtue  has  its  being — 
these  are  the  great  types  in  which  idolatry  has  prevailed 
among  mankind.  And  to-day  the  man  who  is  looking 
to  his  money  or  his  education  or  his  good  repute  or  his 
family  for  the  satisfaction  and  the  culture  which  God 
gives  us  through  them  all,  but  which  neither  of  them 
gives  us  of  and  by  itself,  he  is  the  modern  idolater. 
He,  like  all  the  idolaters  of  old,  has  cut  the  channels  of 
hfe  off  from  the  source  of  life,  and  sits  with  his  thirsty 
lips  pressed  to  their  dry  mouths,  getting  no  real  refresh- 
ment, however  he  may  delude  himself. 

The  words  which  I  have  made  my  text  were  wi'itten 
about  John  the  Baptist.  His  life  was  certainly  one  of 
the  most  original  in  the  whole  New  Testament.  It 
must  have  seemed  so  to  his  contemporaries.  To  the 
multitude  of  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  men  and  women, 
rich  and  poor,  good  and  bad,  who  went  streaming  from 
Jerusalem  down  to  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  to  hear  him 
preach,  how  new  and  refreshing  it  must  have  seemed  ! 
So  different  from  all  the  people  who  said  what  other 
people  told  them  and  were  what  other  people  made 
them,  here  was  a  man  who  was  himself  and  spoke 
things  of  his  own.  It  must  have  seemed  as  if  that 
light  that  shone  with  such  a  new  and  piercing  luster 
were  certainly  a  light  that  burned  by  its  own  radiance ; 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  37 

as  if  the  fountain  that  their  old  prophets  had  said 
should  be  opened  for  sin  and  for  uneleanness  had  really 
biu'st  the  ground  at  last,  so  clear,  strong,  new,  and  in- 
dependent, like  a  spring  of  fresh  water  bursting  up  in 
the  very  middle  of  a  brackish  pool,  the  life  of  John  the 
Baptist  must  have  dashed  in  among  their  ordinaiy  ex- 
perience of  scribes  and  Levites. 

We  can  see  such  a  feeling.  They  evidently  wanted  to 
worsliip  him.  There  were  all  the  materials  for  a  full- 
made  idolatry ;  and  the  nobleness  of  John  the  Baptist's 
character  is  shown  most  of  all  in  the  way  in  which  he 
swept  it  all  aside.  He  said  of  himself  again  and  again, 
what  John  the  Evangelist  says  of  him  in  this  verse,  that 
he  was  not  an  original  source  of  light  or  power,  but  that 
all  the  force  of  his  life  consisted  in  the  way  in  which  he 
reflected  upon  men  the  Light  that  came  on  him  from 
above :  "  He  was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear 
witness  of  that  Light."  The  life  of  the  Baptist  does 
furnish  us  the  completest  study  of  the  truest  "  original- 
ity." In  that  way  I  want  it  to  point  our  subject  to-day. 
But  at  the  very  outset  he  tells  us,  and  the  Evangelist 
tells  us  of  him,  that  his  originality  consisted  not  in  the 
structm-e  of  his  own  life  or  its  ability  to  send  out  power 
fi'om  itself,  but  solely  in  the  way  in  which  it  caught  the 
life  of  Christ  and  made  that  influential  in  the  world. 

Here  is  the  figure.  I  see  what  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
Sim  burning  in  the  distance.  I  go  up  to  it  and  find  it 
is  no  sun,  but  only  a  miiTor,  and  looking  up  at  the 
angle  which  the  mirror  points,  there  is  the  true  sun 
blazing  overhead.  The  power  of  the  mirror  is  only 
that  it  has  caught  the  sun  on  a  peculiar  surface  and 
flashed  it  in  a  new  direction,  on  a  new  level,  in  the  eyes 


38  THIRD   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

of  men.  Is  there  anything  in  a  theory  of  human  great- 
ness and  effectiveness  like  this  that  helps  explain  any  of 
the  commonest  phenomena  we  see  ?  At  the  very  first 
statement  of  it  I  think  there  is.  When  we  look  at  our 
fellow-men  there  is  much  that  bewilders  us.  In  the  first 
place,  then*  inconsistencies.  They  are  such  strange  mix- 
tures. At  one  moment  we  are  ready  to  faU  down  before 
them  for  something  that  they  do,  and  almost  worship 
them ;  and  the  next  moment  something  else  occurs  that 
makes  us  almost  hate  to  think  that  we  are  men.  This 
double  nature  is  always  turning  its  different  sides  upon 
us.  "What  shaU  we  think  of  this  brother  man  of  ours 
(and  what  we  think  of  him  we  must  think  of  ourselves, 
for  we  know  that  we  are  like  him)  ?  Is  he  gold  or  clay, 
precious  or  worthless?  And  there  is  also  the  strange 
look  of  only  half -appropriation,  half -owner ship,  in  the 
best  things  that  they  are  and  do,  which  we  have  all  seen 
in  other  men,  and  felt  something  of,  also,  in  ourselves. 
When  a  man  does  an  act  of  higher  purity  or  unselfish- 
ness than  usual  he  seems  to  be  at  once  vaguely  im- 
pressed with  the  sense  that  it  was  not  he  that  did  it; 
that  some  higher  power  has  but  used  him  as  an  instru- 
ment ;  that  it  was  the  act  of  God  in  him.  Now,  taking 
these  two  phenomena,  not  to  speak  of  any  other — this 
bluiTcd  and  mottled  life,  with  its  double  natures,  and 
this  strange  misgiving  that  the  best  that  is  in  us  does 
not  belong  to  us — two  facts  of  universal  human  con- 
sciousness— what  theory  could  explain  them  like  this : 
that  no  man  is  a  separate,  rounded  character,  indepen- 
dent of  any  other,  carrying  his  own  qualities  included 
in  himself ;  that  every  man  is  a  medium  through  whom 
God  expressed  Himself  with  more  or  less  of  clearness 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  39 

and  effectiveness,  according  to  the  transparency  or 
dimness  of  the  character  on  which  His  life  falls  ?  We 
are  like  windows  through  which  a  higher  light  is  al- 
ways falling;  but  the  window  is  blurred  and  mottled 
because  at  some  places  it  is  stained  deep  and  will  not 
let  the  light  through ;  and  where  it  does  receive  it,  it  is 
always  conscious  of  receiving.  The  radiance  with  which 
it  shines  comes  to  it  from  without — not  it  shines,  but 
the  light  shines  through  it. 

This  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  dependent,  the 
related,  humanity.  We  learn  to  count  men,  thus,  not 
by  the  witness  that  they  bear  of  themselves,  but  by  the 
witness  that  they  bear  of  God.  Not  merely  these  nota- 
ble phenomena  of  human  life  which  I  have  suggested, 
but  many  others  of  the  most  subtle  and  perplexing, 
become  clearer  to  us  when  we  have  once  reached  this 
conception  of  the  unity  of  the  universe,  of  the  way  in 
which  man  exists  and  manifests  himself  only  in  relation 
toward  God.  "Christ  is  all,  and  in  alV ;  or,  in  Paul's 
phrase,  "  None  of  us  liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth 
to  himself.  Whether  we  Uve,  therefore,  or  die,  we  are 
the  Lord's." 

And  yet  let  us  not  think  that  this  limits  or  impairs 
the  sacred  and  precious  truth  of  personality.  It  might 
seem  at  first  as  if  it  led  on  to  a  horrible  idea — to  the 
idea  that  our  personality  consisted  only  in  those  ele- 
ments of  our  own  selfhood  with  which  each  of  us  ob- 
scures the  divine  light  that  is  tr^dng  to  express  itself 
by  each  of  us.  It  would,  indeed,  be  a  horrible  idea  to 
hold  that  our  individuality  lay  only  in  our  sin  and  im- 
perfection ;  that  if  you  could  cleanse  every  man  of  sin 
and  lift  every  man  to  perfect  harmony  with  God,  then 


40  THIRD  SmroAY  IN  ADVENT, 

men  would  be  all  just  alike ;  tliat  this  separateness  from 
one  another  which  makes  every  man  liimseK  would  all 
be  lost,  and  one  uniform  divine  life  blot  out  and  super- 
sede this  multitudinous  variety  of  human  character. 
It  is  a  groundless  fear.  The  substance  of  these  single 
mirrors  which  each  of  us  would  hold  then  in  their  per- 
fect purity  to  God  is  still  so  different  that  each  must 
reflect  God  in  its  own  way.  None  of  them  could  utter 
Him  completely.  Each  nuist  catch  and  send  forth  that 
part  of  Him  for  which  it  had  most  fitness ;  and  so  still 
in  a  world  of  saints,  as  in  this  world,  all  stained  and 
mangled  with  its  sin,  the  beautiful  variety  of  character 
must  be  preserved,  and  each  man  be  himself  more  evi- 
dently the  more  evidently  that  he  shone  with  God. 

It  must  be  so,  surely.  Holiness  does  not  make  men 
monotonous.  The  dimmer  the  light  the  more  things 
look  alike.  Increase  the  light  and  then  you  see  how 
different  they  are.  Childhood  with  its  bright  hopeful- 
ness, and  manhood  with  its  enterprise,  and  womanhood 
with  its  tenderness — each  grows  more  specially  itself  at 
the  touch  of  grace.  The  old  man  and  the  young  man, 
the  thinker,  the  artist,  the  worker,  the  merchant,  the 
doctor,  and  the  lawyer — out  of  each  comes  up  to  the 
surface  a  prof ounder  individuality  when  they  all  begin 
to  live  to  God.  And  the  subtler  differences  which  dis- 
tinguish man  from  man  and  woman  from  woman,  mak- 
ing each  being  a  separate  thought  of  God,  unlike  any 
other — these  become  clearer  as  the  idea  of  God  in  the 
creation  of  each  becomes  more  fully  realized.  The 
pebbles  lie  duU  and  dead  and  all  gray  alike  in  the  dry 
bed  of  the  brook  till  ^vdth  the  spring  freshet  the  water 
comes  pouring  down  and  wets  them  all  alike  and  brings 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  AD\'ENT.  41 

out  their  beautiful  variety  of  color  and  makes  them  all 
different. 

Here,  then,  I  think,  we  have  the  religions  conception 
of  originality.  How  strangely  men  talk  'about  being 
original !  They  are  always  passing  on,  as  they  grow  to 
be  more  and  more  of  men,  to  deeper  and  deeper  sorts 
of  originality.  First  we  have  the  mere  boy's  notion  of 
being  original,  which  some  men  who  never  deepen  seem 
never  to  outgrow.  It  is  the  mere  originahty  of  dress 
and  habits.  To  look  different  from  other  people,  to 
wear  other  clothes,  to  live  in  some  strange  house,  to 
adopt  some  strange  set  of  phrases,  some  peculiar  style 
of  talk,  to  be  somehow  eccentric,  to  separate  one's  self 
somehow  from  this  great  indistinguishable  crowd,  so 
that  men  may  distinguish  our  figure  from  the  multitude 
as  we  sweep  by,  and  say  something  about  us  or  ask 
somebody  who  we  are — this  is  the  most  superficial  form 
of  the  desire  for  originality  which,  perhaps,  almost  all 
young  men  feel  at  some  time,  but  pass  out  of  and  out- 
grow, but  which  now  and  then  some  poor  old  creature 
lives  in  all  his  days.  Beyond  this  mere  originality  of 
habits  runs  the  desire  for  originality  of  opinions  and 
ideas.  Not  to  think  over  again  what  all  the  common 
herd  are  thinking,  to  start  some  new  idea,  to  send  forth 
something  that  shall  show  our  fellows  that  this  machi- 
nery within  us  does  not  work  just  the  same  with  all  the 
mental  machinery  in  all  the  world — this  is  the  higher 
ambition  of  a  higher  man.  Both  of  these  are  struggles. 
They  are  the  efforts  of  a  man  to  make  himself  original. 
They  have  their  origin  and  their  limit  in  his  own  seK- 
esteem.  Different  from  both  of  them  is  that  religious 
consciousness  which  the  devout  man  has  that  God  made 


42  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

him  special,  for  a  special  purpose,  for  a  special  exliibi- 
tion  of  himself ;  and  so  the  desire  to  be  himself  com- 
pletely, in  order  that  no  purpose  which  God  had  in  his 
creation  may  fail  through  his  being  distorted  or  ob- 
scured. This  is  a  desire  for  the  divine  originality  of 
character  which  God  intended,  and  is  far  above  the 
lower  desires  for  mere  originality  of  look  or  of  opinion. 
Many  men  try  to  be  John  the  Baptists  by  wearing  the 
skins  and  eating  the  locusts  and  wild  honey.  Others 
would  be  John  the  Baptists  by  preaching  strange  doc- 
trines to  the  Pharisees  and  the  people.  Very  few  seek 
to  live  the  life  that  he  lived  by  recognizing  that  they 
are  sent  into  the  world,  not  to  shine  themselves,  but 
merely  by  some  w;ay  of  their  own  to  bear  witness  of  the 
Light  of  God. 

But,  once  having  reached  this  idea  of  human  life,  it 
would  seem  certain  that  a  man  must  make  very  little 
of  the  lower  and  more  superficial  ways  of  emphasizing 
his  own  personality  and  seeming  to  be  original.  The 
mere  effort  to  look  different  from  other  people  or  to  be 
the  utterer  of  new  and  startHng  thoughts  must  seem 
very  insignificant  to  a  man  who  has  come  calmly  to  the 
knowledge  that  God  meant  something  separate  and 
special  by  his  life,  that  God  made  him  for  something, 
and  who  is  therefore  trying  to  be  so  pure  and  obedient 
and  truthful — in  one  word,  so  trul}^  himself — that  God 
can  say  and  do  by  him  all  that  He  designed.  Such  a 
man  will  resent  any  interference  with  the  truthfulness 
and  obedience  of  his  life  no  matter  whence  it  comes, 
but  he  will  easily  conform  himself  to  the  ordinary  in- 
different ways  of  living  that  he  finds  about  him.  The 
higher  view  that  a  man  gets  of  life  the  more  able  he 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  43 

will  be  to  distinguish  just  where  he  ought  and  where  he 
ought  not  to  conform  his  individuality  to  the  standards 
and  habits  of  his  fellow-men.  The  cheap  and  superficial 
aspirant  for  originality  is  apt  to  be  rebellious  in  small 
and  insignificant  details  and  to  be  servile  all  the  while 
before  the  worst  requirements  of  social  life.  The  true 
disciple  of  God  will  be  yielding  enough  in  indifferent 
details,  but  fij-m  as  a  rock  against  the  most  time-honored 
abuses  or  iniquities.  He  will  dress  like  his  neighbors 
and  use  no  unfamiliar  phrases  when  he  talks  with  them, 
but  he  will  stand  out,  even  if  he  stands  out  all  alone, 
against  the  most  reputable  fallacy  of  business  or  the 
social  lie  which  aU  the  parlors  in  the  town  are  teUing. 
He  will  be  like  a  healthy  plant  that  does  not  care  about 
the  color  of  the  pot  it  grows  in,  but  does  care  very 
much  about  the  quality  of  the  earth  out  of  which  it  has 
to  feed  its  roots. 

Just  think  how  different  from  what  we  ordinarily  see 
would  be  the  society  thoroughly  informed  with  this 
idea  of  life.  Instead  of  the  dreary  monotony  of  the 
many,  and  the  eager,  nervous  search  of  the  few  after 
some  superficial  sort  of  singularity,  we  should  have  our 
houses  and  streets  full  of  men  and  women  each  simply 
doing  his  separate  duty,  and  so  unconsciously  bearing 
his  separate  witness  of  the  Light  of  God.  We  should 
not  be  asking  whether  we  were  like  one  another  or  not 
— not  trying  to  be  and  not  trjdng  not  to  be — but  only 
asking  always  whether  we  were  like  that  special  type  of 
love  and  duty  which  God  designed  for  us  to  be.  Such 
a  society  I  can  picture  to  myself,  full  of  activity  and 
yet  free  from  restlessness,  having  the  same  beautiful 
charm  which  fascinates  us  in  nature,  where  every  tree 


44  THIRD   SUNDAY  EST  ADVENT. 

and  shrub  and  brook,  every  wing  of  bird  and  stretch  of 
sky  and  patch  of  snow,  sliines  with  its  own  color,  which 
is  merely  its  translation  of  the  universal  sunlight,  in  a 
variety  which  has  no  restless  jealousy,  and  a  peaceful 
harmony  which  cannot  become  monotonous. 

And  to  my  mind  tliis  thought  of  life  involves  a  very 
noble  and  satisfying  conception  of  God  and  what  He  is 
to  us.  It  puts  Him  in  the  center  of  all  life,  and  all  life 
revolves  around  and  lives  by  Him.  We  are  so  apt  to 
make  our  God  either  careless  or  servUe.  Our  reverent 
feeling  toward  God  is  always  in  danger  of  setting  Him 
afar  off,  as  if  He  did  not  care  for  and  had  Uttle  to  do 
with  these  lives  that  He  had  made.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  many  efforts  to  make  God  familiar,  to  feel  how 
close  He  is  to,  and  how  He  is  alwaj^s  helping  the  lives 
of,  all  His  children,  have  seemed  to  make  Him  but  the 
Servant  of  His  universe,  waiting  at  men's  beck  and  call 
to  bring  them  what  they  need.  How  many  people's  idea 
of  special  providences  labors  under  this  difficulty,  as 
other  men's  awe  of  God  seems  to  make  their  souls 
orphans  by  putting  theii*  God  so  far  away !  And  then, 
again,  we  are  always  loc^ilizing  God — bringing  Him 
down  to  our  own  land  or  sect,  narrowing  Him  even  to 
our  own  single  experience,  and  thinking  that  all  the 
ministrations  of  help  or  revelations  of  duty  that  He 
makes  to  others  must  be  the  same,  in  the  same  shape, 
that  He  has  made  to  us.  But  here  He  takes  His  kingly 
and  fatherly  place  in  the  center  of  mankind,  and  all 
men,  with  their  different  capacities  of  uttering  Him,  are 
gathered  around  Him.  Upon  each  He  flashes  some 
portion  of  Himself.  Out  from  each  some  witness  of  His 
love  and  power  is  sent  into  the  universe,  not  for  the 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  45 

amazement  of  other  worlds,  perhaps — we  cannot  say 
how  that  may  be ;  rather,  I  think,  out  of  the  absolute 
need  of  utterance  that  belongs  to  all  the  highest  exis- 
tence. He  bears  witness  of  Himself  through  the  obedi- 
ence of  all  His  children.  Thus  He  Himself  is  glorified  in 
helping  them.  Here  is  a  kingliness  that  does  not  need 
to  be  withdrawn  in  order  to  maintain  its  majesty.  It 
is  the  more  majestic  the  nearer  that  it  comes  to  needy 
lives.  Here  is  a  ministry  to  man  that  does  not  lower, 
but  glorifies  the  God  who  renders  it,  making  man,  after 
all,  only  the  humble  minister  of  the  God  who  serves 
him. 

If  we  want  to  bring  this  truth  out  of  its  vagueness 
and  make  it  very  real  we  must  look  at  the  manifested 
God  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  look  back  to  the 
story  of  the  Gospels,  and  as  the  men  and  women  there 
stand  around  oui*  Lord,  the  account  that  must  be  given 
of  them  all,  as  they  catch  their  character  and  theii-  im- 
mortality from  Him,  seems  to  be  this :  they  were  not 
that  Light,  but  they  were  sent  to  bear  witness  of  that 
Light.  Mary,  John,  Peter,  Zaceheus,  the  Magdalen, 
Martha,  Nicodemus,  and  the  djdng  thief — how  they 
shine  like  stars  in  the  firmament  of  the  gospel,  not  by 
their  o^vn  light,  but  by  His  who  shone  upon  them  all ! 
How  clear  their  personality  is  as  He  walks  among  them 
and  charms  them  out  of  their  artificialness  and  makes 
them  be  themselves !  Have  you  a  servant  in  your 
house  who  serves  you  as  meekly  as  the  Son  of  God 
served  those  poor  men  and  women  ?  And  yet  how,  oy 
the  ser\dce  that  He  rendered  to  each  of  them,  He  trans- 
lated His  eternal  nature  into  some  new  glory  of  helpful- 
ness, and  was  more  manifestly  the  Son  of  God ! 


46  THIRD   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

And  so  the  highest  object  of  a  man's  life  still  is  that 
it  may  give  forth  some  new  and  characteristic  expres- 
sion of  the  life  of  God.  As  the  sun  shines  upon  a  bank 
of  snow  no  two  of  all  the  myriad  particles  catch  his 
light  alike  or  give  the  same  interpretation  of  his  glory. 
Have  you  ever  imagined  such  a  purpose  for  youi*  com- 
monplace existence  ?  If  you  have  you  must  have  asked 
yourself  what  the  quality  is  in  a  man's  life  which  can 
make  it  reflective  of  God — capable  of  bearing  witness  of 
Him.  There  is  some  quality  in  the  polished  brass  or  in 
the  calm  lake  that  makes  it  able  to  send  forth  again 
the  sunlight  that  descends  upon  it.  What  is  it  in  a 
soul  that  makes  it  able  to  do  the  same  to  the  God  who 
sheds  Himself  upon  its  life?  The  Bible  has  its  one 
great  name  for  such  a  great  transforming  quality,  and 
that  is  "  love."  Love  in  the  Bible  is  not  so  much  an 
action  of  the  soul  as  it  is  a  quahty  in  the  soul  permit- 
ting God  to  do  His  divine  actions  through  it.  "  If  any 
man  love  God,  the  same  is  known  of  Him"  (1  Cor. 
viii.  3).  That  is  the  profound  expression  of  St.  Paul, 
and  it  includes  this  idea.  The  love  of  God  is  a  new  na- 
ture, a  new  fiber,  a  new  fineness  and  responsiveness  in 
the  soul  itself,  by  which  God  is  able  to  express  Himself 
upon  and  through  it  as  He  cannot  when  He  finds  only 
the  medium  of  the  coarse  material  of  an  unloving  heart. 
Do  we  not  know  something  of  this?  I  live  with  a 
crowd  of  people  who  love  nothing  better  than  the 
world  and  the  things  that  are  in  the  world,  or  I  keep 
company  with  some  unloving  men  who  call  themselves 
Christians,  hard  men  of  the  commandments,  to  whom 
the  work  of  God  is  always  an  unremitting  task ;  and 
from  aU  that  I  see  of  them  I  get  no  knowledge  of  God  j 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  47 

I  am  as  ignorant  of  Him  as  ever.  But  then  I  spend  an 
hour  with  a  man  who  has  the  fine  and  subtle  quality, 
who  really  does  love  God,  and  I  come  away  feeling 
that  I  have  been  in  God's  very  presence,  and  that  I 
know  more  of  Him.  This  saint  has  borne  witness  to  me 
"  of  that  Light."  And  think  how  independent  the  soul 
humbly  conscious  of  such  a  task  as  that  must  be  of  the 
ordinary  judgments  of  mankind  !  Ah,  my  friend,  you 
know  veiy  little  how  like  the  harmless  wind  your  criti- 
cal sneers  sweep  by  the  man  whose  soul  is  only  set  on 
serving  and  manifesting  God.  His  only  care  concern- 
ing his  fellow-men  must  be  a  noble  anxiety  lest  he 
should  w/sinterpret  God  to  them — not  lest  he  should 
offend  them,  but  lest  he  should  harm  them  or  mislead 
by  his  imperfect  reflection  of  the  life  of  God. 

For  there  are  imperfections  enough.  What  does  it 
mean  ?  Here  is  a  man  who,  I  know,  loves  God,  and  I 
am  sure  that,  reflected  from  his  love,  I  do  get,  when  I 
am  with  him,  some  true  impression  of  what  God  is.  His 
life  is  a  revelation.  He  does  bear  witness  of  the  Light. 
And  yet  how  full  the  light  that  he  sends  to  me  is  of 
motes  and  blotches  of  darkness  !  I  am  sure  that  when 
I  hear  him  pray  or  talk  of  his  religion,  though  much  of 
what  I  get  is  God,  yet  much  is  the  man's  self  and  is  not 
God  at  all.  What  is  the  reason  that  veiy  often  your 
religion  seems  to  men  selfish  and  vain  and  insincere? 
They  call  it  emit.  It  may  be  that  it  is  their  obstinacy, 
but  certainly  part  of  the  reason  is  that  you  are  flinging 
yourself  at  them  and  not  casting  on  them  the  pure  light 
of  God.  It  is  as  if  the  surface  of  the  brazen  mirror 
were  crumbled  and  disintegrated  and  covered  with  a 
«ort  of  thin  dust  of  itself  which  blurred  every  image 


48  TEORD   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

that  it  tried  to  cast.  So  we  mix  ourselves  with  what 
we  tell  men  of  God — a  sort  of  dusty,  superficial  self- 
hood, not  the  true  transparent  self  from  which  He 
wishes  to  shine.  Certainly  we  aU  know  that  there  are 
other  reasons  besides  men's  native  wickedness,  besides 
their  blindness  and  obstinacy,  to  account  for  their  not 
being  convicted  and  comforted  by  what  we  try  to  show 
them  of  God  in  our  Christian  lives. 

I  hope  that  with  all  this  definition  I  have  succeeded 
in  putting  before  youi*  minds  what  seems  to  me  to  be 
a  very  distinct  and  high  conception  of  the  purpose  of 
this  life  which  we  are  hving  in  this  world.  It  puzzles 
us  so  sometimes.  What  are  we  here  for?  What  does 
it  all  mean  ?  What  is  it  all  about  ?  We  are  not  facts 
of  consequence  enough  to  account  for  ourselves.  Our 
lives  are  not  beautiful  enough  to  be  their  own  "  excuse 
for  being."  Nor,  in  full  many  moods,  does  it  seem  to 
us  even  as  if  our  fellow-men  were  of  so  great  impor- 
tance that  we  should  exist  solely  for  helping  them.  To 
think  so  sometimes  seems  merely  an  effort  to  account 
for  insignificance  by  piling  up  other  insignificance 
which  it  is  made  to  help.  But  if  any  such  idea  as  this 
be  true — that  we  are  here  to  manifest  God,  to  make  Him 
glorious  by  opening  ourselves  to  every  inflow  and  out- 
flow of  His  perfect  will — then  it  is  not  unaccountable. 
At  least  with  this  idea  we  shall  have  gained  several 
important  things  which  have  seemed  almost  impossible 
to  get  before. 

We  shall  have  discovered  a  possible  harmony  between 
a  profound  value  of  our  own  existence  and  a  complete 
humility.   As  soon  as  you  spur  a  man  on  to  do  any  good 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  49 

work  in  the  world  by  making  him  think  that  there  is  a 
work  that  he  can  do  better  than  anybody  else,  almost 
always  you  find  your  new-made  worker  gi'owing  full  of 
self -consequence,  until  you  are  disgusted  with  the  way 
in  which  you  yourself  have  pushed  him  on,  and  wonder 
whether  it  would  not  have  been  better  to  have  left  him 
in  his  idle  uselessness,  which  at  least  was  free  from  the 
poison  of  conceit.  How  very  rare  it  is  to  find  an  ex- 
ceedingly useful  and  hard-working  man  whose  energy 
and  devotion  are  not  tainted  by  self-satisfaction  !  But 
here,  if  all  we  do  is  but  to  make  ourselves  channels 
through  which  the  power  of  God  shall  flow ;  if  when  a 
man  stands  up  and  calls  a  whole  city  out  of  corrupt- 
ness, or  a  whole  race  out  of  slavery,  he  is  deeply  and 
genuinely  conscious  that  it  is  not  he  that  speaks,  but 
God  (as  Jesus,  you  remember,  told  His  disciples  it  should 
be  with  them),  then  that  is  won  which  is  so  rare  in  the 
great  workers  (or  in  little  ones  either) :  all  self-satisfac- 
tion disappears.  The  man  is  lost  in  the  cause ;  nay,  the 
cause  itself  is  lost  in  joy  that  God,  whom  to  know  is 
life,  has  made  Himself  hereby  a  little  more  known  to 
men. 

And  again,  here  is  this  continual  conflict  between  the 
sense  of  responsibihty  and  the  desire  of  repose  which 
we  find  more  or  less  in  all  the  more  faithful  lives.  I 
know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  peace  to  seek  and 
find.  But  here  is  my  work  to  do,  to  worry  over  whether 
I  am  doing  it  right,  to  keep  myself  restless  over  how  it 
will  turn  out.  ^^My  worJc/^  I  say ;  but  if  I  can  know  that 
it  is  not  my  work,  but  God's,  should  I  not  cast  away 
my  restlessness,  even  while  I  worked  on  more  faithfully 
and  untiringly  than  ever  ?    Ah,  there  was  mighty  and 


50  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

blessed  truth  in  all  the  old  theologies,  hard  and  mis- 
chievous as  they  often  grew  to  be,  that  magnified  God 
and  made  man  the  humblest  of  instruments ;  that  aimed 
to  lose  the  man  in  God  as  utterly  as  possible.  If  I 
could  poiu'  through  all  the  good  plan  over  which  I  am 
laboring  the  certainty  that  all  that  is  good  in  it  is  God's 
and  must  succeed,  how  that  certainty  would  drive  the 
darkness  out  of  it !  and  while  I  worked  harder  than 
ever,  my  work  would  have  something  of  the  calmness 
with  which  He  labors  always.  This  must  have  been 
what  Jesus  promised  when  He  said,  ^^My  peace  I  give 
unto  you."  This  must  have  been  what  Paul  meant 
when  he  said,  "  Work  out  your  own  salvation :  for  it  is 
God  which  worketh  in  you."  "  Fear  and  trembling  "  still, 
but  no  dismay,  no  hastening  or  discontent. 

But,  more  than  all,  this  truth  seems  to  me  powerful 
because  it  so  brings  out  the  wickedness  of  sin.  It  is  so 
easy  for  us  to  make  our  sins  seem  insignificant.  What 
are  they  ?  "  The  perversions  of  good  passions — that  is 
aU."  Lust,  cruelty,  even  falsehood,  the  meanest  and 
most  confessedly  contemptible  of  sins — how  readily  we 
find  apologies  for  all  of  them !  Men  may  make  them 
of  little  account  from  every  point  of  view  excepting 
one.  Only  when  men  have  dared  to  think  of  them- 
selves sublimely,  as  possible  reflections  of  the  life  of 
God  on  earth — only  then  does  sin  become  essentially 
and  forever  horrible.  Be  sure  of  this  in  all  your 
thinking  about  yourself  and  aU  your  preaching  to  your 
fellow-men :  that  you  can  never  make  them  see  their 
sins  aright  except  by  seeing  rightly  the  very  highest 
idea  and  possibility  of  their  existence.  If  you  could 
see  the  divine  life  which  that  sin  of  yours  yesterday 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  51 

hindered  and  blurred,  how  you  would  hate  it!  "We 
never  shall  be  as  glad  as  the  angels  are  that  a  sinner 
is  forgiven  (be  that  sinner  ourself  or  some  poor  brother) 
till  we  first  see  as  the  angels  see  what  sin  interferes 
with  and  destroys — how  idleness  blurs  like  a  cloud,  and 
selfishness  covers  with  great  spots  of  blackness,  and 
impiety  breaks  with  a  blow  that  pure  human  life  which 
was  made  to  reflect  God,  to  bear  witness  of  the  Light. 
And,  once  more,  this  truth  seems  to  me  to  throw  a 
flood  of  light  upon  the  whole  work  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  What  was  He  doing  in  those  hard  three  and 
tliu'ty  years?  "Redeeming  us,"  we  sa3^  Yes,  at  great 
cost,  bringing  us  back  again  to  what  He  made  us  first 
to  be ;  cleansing  the  clouded  mirror ;  making  man  once 
more  fit  to  be  the  witness  of  God.  Men  ask  wherein  the 
vu'tue  of  his  Atonement  lay.  Was  it  in  His  life  f  Was 
it  in  His  death  ?  And  we  must  answer,  "  Everywhere  !  " 
Wherever  any  cloud  was  swept  away,  any  stain  loosened 
so  that  it  could  fall  oif  from  the  mirror-soul,  any  re- 
storal  made  in  the  injured  substance  of  the  soul  itself, 
any  power  used  to  turn  back  again  the  soul's  face  which 
had  been  turned  away  from  God — wherever  that  mar- 
velous Being,  living  and  dying,  wrought  any  restoral 
in  man,  or  made  clearer  the  atmosphere  between  God 
and  man,  there  was,  there  is  in  His  continual  work,  the 
perfect  Atonement  which  He  came  to  make.  And  this 
we  are  sure  of :  that  so  long  as  men  will  keep  in  mind 
and  heart  what  the  final  purpose  of  Christ's  Redemp- 
tion was — to  restore  a  pure  humanity  that  could  receive 
and  utter  God — so  long  there  is  no  serious  danger  that 
anything  unworthy,  anything  too  mercantile  or  brutal, 
can  come  into  their  theories  about  the  method  of  the 


52  THIRD   SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

Redemption ;  or,  if  it  finds  its  way  there  througli  any 
wrong  teaching,  its  harm  must  be  neutralized. 

I  hope  I  have  not  seemed  to-day  to  take  too  large 
and  vague  a  view  of  human  life;  to  talk  about  the 
architecture  of  the  heavens  when  you  were  trying  to 
learn  how  to  build  your  house-roofs.  I  beheve  in 
these  larger  conceptions  of  life  which  men  call  vague. 
I  must  have  some  notion  in  general  of  what  I  am  alive 
for,  or  I  cannot  live  rightly  from  hour  to  hour,  this 
evening  and  to-morrow  morning.  Much  that  seems 
petty  and  paltry  in  our  ordinary  life  can  only  be  exalted 
and  made  tolerable  Dy  being  taken  up  and  lost  in  some 
great  idea  of  life — as  the  tawdrinesses  and  poor  work 
that  abounds  in  a  great  building  like  St.  Peter's  Church 
at  Rome  is  all  harmonized  and  subdued  and  made  of 
use  in  the  mighty  vastness  of  the  whole  great  building. 
Ten  thousand  men  become  machines,  I  believe,  from 
too  narrow,  where  one  man  becomes  a  visionary  from 
too  large,  theories  of  life. 

This  be  our  thought  of  life,  then.  It  is  not  for  what 
we  are  that  we  are  living,  but  that  something  more  of 
what  God  is  may  become  evident  and  effective  in  the 
world.  There  is  a  purpose  of  life  which  we  never  can 
outgrow.  We  shall  go  up  to  heaven  some  day,  and  as 
we  stand  before  His  throne  still  there  will  be  witness  of 
God  for  each  of  us  to  bear — some  witness,  I  believe, 
which  no  other  soul  in  all  the  universe  could  bear  but 
we.  The  heavens  will  be  telling  the  glory  of  God  for- 
ever; and  though  our  star  may  be  indistinguishable, 
somewhere  in  all  the  flood  of  radiance  shall  be  the  light 


TfflRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  53 

it  sheds — a  witness  special  and  different  in  color  from 
all  the  others  which  are  reflecting  that  Light  which  is 
to  lighten  every  saint. 

Until  that  comes,  the  same  truth  is  true  here  on  the 
earth.  To  every  poor  sufferer,  to  every  discouraged 
worker,  to  every  man  who  cannot  think  much  of  him- 
self and  yet  is  too  brave  to  despair,  this  is  the  com'age 
that  the  gospel  gives.  Not  what  you  can  do,  but  what 
He  can  do  in  you ;  not  what  you  are,  but  what  you  can 
help  men  to  see  that  He  is — that  is  the  power  by  which 
you  are  to  work.  I  beg  you  to  think,  in  the  light  of 
this  truth  we  have  been  studying  to-day,  of  the  deep- 
est meaning  of  these  words  of  St.  Paul :  "  Ye  are  not 
your  own.  Ye  are  bought  with  a  price :  therefore 
glorify  God  in  your  body,  and  in  your  spirit,  which  are 
God's." 


rv. 

FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

"But  when  the  fullness  of  the  time  was  come,  God  sent  forth 
His  Son."— Gal.  iv.  4. 

No  event  ever  happens  in  this  world  of  ours  until  the 
fullness  of  its  time  has  come.  This  belief  must  go 
with  any  true  behef  in  a  real  governing  and  guiding 
God.  No  wind  blows  and  no  child  is  born,  no  old  man 
dies  and  no  bush  flowers,  no  avalanche  tumbles  and 
no  revolution  bursts,  no  error  is  exploded  and  no  truth 
discovered,  until  the  fullness  of  its  time  has  come.  If 
a  great  crime  make  the  whole  world  tremble  and  grow 
pale  with  horror,  it  came  because  its  time  was  fuU.  If 
an  angelic  deed  of  piety  or  mercy  lights  up  the  world 
like  sunshine,  and  makes  men's  hearts  sing  for  triumph 
and  for  very  joy  in  being  men,  it  came  because  its  time 
was  full.  If  we  could  open  the  frozen  ground  to-day 
and  read  the  histoiy  of  every  buried  grain  of  wheat,  of 
every  sluggish  root  which  is  hiding  in  the  warm  earth 
with  its  next  year's  blossoms  folded  up  within  it ;  if  we 
could  know  the  whole  natui-e  of  their  latent  forces,  and 
see  their  possibilities  entirely,  then  we  should  be  able  to 
tell  of  each  of  those  forces  when  its  time  would  be  fuU, 
and  we  could  prophesy  just  when  the  ground  would 
break,  and  just  how  the  color  in  the  flower- leaves  would 

54 


FOURTH   SXINDAY  IN  ADVENT.  55 

deepen,  and  just  at  what  moment  the  fruit  would  stand 
finally  and  perfectly  ripe ;  and  next  spring  and  summer 
would  bear  witness  to  our  prophecies  and  confii-m  them 
all.  And  so  if  we  could  open  the  surface  of  the  world's 
moral  and  spiritual  life,  and  read  all  that  is  hidden 
there,  and  understand  the  nature  of  every  impulse  and 
the  powers  to  which  it  will  respond,  what  should  we 
need  more  ?  Should  we  not  see  at  once  the  whole  moral 
and  spiritual  future  of  the  world  revealed  to  us  ?  We 
should  see  just  when  each  force  would  reach  the 
fullness  of  its  time,  just  when  the  harvest  of  all  the 
struggles  that  are  in  tumult  here  about  us  would  be 
peacefully  ripe,  just  when  the  world  would  be  converted 
and  human  nature  would  be  free  from  its  sin  and  the 
millennium  would  open  on  the  redeemed,  regenerated 
earth.  For  all  those  things  exist  now.  They  are  with 
God  in  the  secrets  of  his  counsels.  He  is  withholding 
them  until  their  times  are  full,  and  then  He  will  send 
them  forth  into  the  light. 

If,  then,  any  one  could  get  into  those  secret  counsels 
of  God,  he  would  see  all  these  wonders  of  the  future 
now.  The  glory  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  to  wear 
by  and  by,  when  she  is  pure  enough  to  conquer  her 
enemies — he  who  went  into  God's  treasuries  of  gi-ace 
would  see  this,  kept  there  by  God  until  the  Church  is 
ready  for  it.  The  delight  and  peace  and  joy  of  Chiis- 
tianity,  for  which,  it  may  be,  you  have  prayed  and 
struggled  and  contended  long,  and  at  last  have  made 
up  your  mind  that  there  is  no  such  thing  anywhere  for 
you — he  would  see  that  dream  of  all  youi-  days  and 
nights  lying  carefully  folded  away  imtil  your  struggles 
and  prayers  had  made  your  soul  large  enough  to  take 


56  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

it  and  to  wear  it.  God  has  the  world's  best  robes,  the 
heart's  best  graces,  safely  kept  in  the  great  treasure- 
room  of  His  own  intentions,  as  a  parent  keeps  rich 
garments  for  his  child  till  he  grows  worthy  of  them. 
Whoever,  then,  can  enter  into  the  intentions  of  God  can 
see  for  himself  what  the  world  and  the  heart  will  be 
when,  after  long  delay  and  tribulation,  the  fullness  of 
the  time  shall  come. 

Does  not  this  let  us  know  in  part  what  is  the  true 
character  of  prophecy,  what  it  is  that  makes  a  prophet  ? 
God  knows  the  futui-e  by  knowing  the  present  per- 
fectly 5  He  knows  the  future  in  the  present,  sees  it 
folded  up  within  the  present's  transparency,  waiting 
for  its  full  time.  Whoever,  then,  can  see  the  present 
as  God  sees  it  will  see  the  future  as  God  sees  it  too. 
Foresight  is  insight.  The  two  are  one.  And  so  it  is 
because  David  and  Isaiah  are  in  such  profounder  sym- 
pathy with  God's  government  than  other  men  that  they 
are  able  to  look  forward  as  other  men  cannot,  and  know 
what  the  results  of  that  government  will  be.  In  this 
truth,  we  are  sure,  must  lie  the  key  to  at  least  a  part  of 
the  mystery  of  prophecy. 

I  am  well  aware  that  there  is  much  in  all  this  state- 
ment which  must  sound  like  fataUsm.  But  it  is  very 
possible  for  providence  and  fatalism  to  sound  alike,  and 
yet  they  stand  as  far  apart  as  the  two  poles,  as  heaven 
and  heU,  as  light  and  darkness.  The  truth  that  no 
event  can  come  until  its  time  is  full  is  based,  not  upon 
any  iron  necessity  in  the  order  of  things  themselves,  but 
in  the  wisdom  of  an  overruling  Father  who  knows  that 
to  send  any  gift  to  man  out  of  its  true  time  would  spoil 
its  character  and  ruin  His  gift  altogether. 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  57 

This  fullness  of  time  consists  of  two  parts,  is  of  two 
kinds ;  it  is  both  external  and  internal.  It  is  internal 
in  so  far  that  no  event  can  happen  except  as  the  result 
of  a  certain  logical  process  of  preparation  which  must 
come  first.  The  life  of  Moses,  let  us  say,  could  never 
have  been  lived,  the  character  of  Moses  could  never 
have  existed,  till  first  there  had  come  the  patriarchs  and 
the  Egyptians,  the  famine  and  the  captivity,  which  all 
added  something  to  the  character  which  was  then  born 
into  the  son  of  the  bondwoman  who  was  found  among 
the  bulrushes  upon  the  Nile.  And  then  there  is  the  ex- 
ternal preparation,  which  consists  in  such  an  ordering 
of  surrounding  events  as  makes  it  possible  for  a  certain 
character,  when  it  is  born  into  the  world,  to  do  a  useful 
and  efficient  work  there.  Pharaoh  and  the  Israelitish 
brethren  of  Moses  had  reached,  in  their  relations  to 
one  another,  just  that  point  which  needed  such  a  man  as 
he  was,  and  so  he  came  in  the  fullness  of  time.  Or  take 
another  case.  America  was  discovered,  as  we  can  see, 
in  the  fullness  of  time.  First  there  had  to  come  the 
long  education  of  the  world  which  made  possible  the 
energy  and  patience  and  skill  that  achieved  the  task. 
And  then  we  can  see  how  it  had  been  kept  until  the 
pressure  of  the  crowded  life  and  the  fermentations  of 
the  new  activity  of  the  Old  World  called  for  another 
continent  to  work  out  to  greater  issues  the  problem  of 
human  history.  Then  the  great  curtain  was  withdrawn 
— then,  in  the  fullness  of  time.  Or,  yet  again,  take  the 
more  personal  case  of  which  I  spoke :  a  man,  a  Chris- 
tian, after  long  struggles  and  doubt,  attains  to  peace 
and  faith.  Is  it  not  true  that  God  couJd  not  give  him 
that  peace  except  by  the  slow  stages  of  an  education 


58  fouhth  Sunday  in  advent 

which  made  him  ready  for  it,  and  also  that  God  would 
not  give  it  to  him  till  it  was  the  best  thing  for  him  to 
have  with  reference  to  the  circumstances  about  him,  in 
the  midst  of  which  his  Christian  life  had  to  be  lived? 
There  was  both  an  interna^  and  an  external  reason. 
And  it  is  because  both  reasons,  the  necessity  of  internal 
education  and  the  necessity  of  external  circumstances, 
will  be  there  perfectly  satisfied  that  heaven  alone,  the 
future  life,  is  the  perfect  fullness  of  time  for  man's  full 
peace  and  joy. 

This  truth  is  very  precious  to  us  because  it  puts  any 
such  idea  as  accident  out  of  the  universe  entirely.  And 
the  love  for  an  accidental  government  is  far  too  com- 
mon among  men.  How  strange  it  seems !  You  hear 
so  many  people  talk  as  if  a  process,  a  slow  development 
from  evident  cause  into  evident  result,  so  that  you  can 
see  how  the  blessing  comes,  somehow  makes  the  bless- 
ing less  and  hghtens  the  burden  of  our  gratitude — as 
if  the  things  we  ought  to  be  most  thankful  for  were 
those  that  came  with  least  apparent  cause,  most  uncon- 
nected and  unassociated  with  the  great  continuous  cur- 
rent of  mercy  that  fills  our  lives.  We  have  a  word  that 
expresses  this.  "We  talk  about  a  godsend,  and  a  god- 
send means  an  unexpected  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  an 
uncaused  blessing.  It  is  about  the  same  as  what  we 
mean  by  that  other  word  which  we  use,  with  only  a 
touch  less  of  reverence,  under  the  same  circumstances, 
when  we  speak  of  a  ivindfall.  It  means  an  accident. 
How  strange  it  seems!  It  is  as  if  a  child  thought 
that  his  father  sent  him,  and  thanked  his  father  for,  the 
crumbs  that  he  found  dropped  upon  the  floor,  which 
fell  there  with  no  design  of  food,  and  never  thought  of 


FOURTH   SU>JDAY   IN   ADVENT.  59 

being  grateful  for  the  orderly,  long-devised,  patiently 
earned  meal  which  in  the  system  of  the  household  his 
father  was  accustomed  to  set  before  him  at  a  certain 
hour  of  the  day.  Neither  the  godsend  nor  the  wind- 
fall is  an  accident,  because  law  is  the  very  natm-e  and 
method  both  of  God  Himself  and  of  the  wind  that  He 
"bringeth  out  of  His  treasuries."  And  if  we  looked 
aright  we  should  feel  that  law  did  not  hamper  or  forbid 
the  return  of  personal  gratitude;  that  the  God  whom 
we  could  come  the  nearest  to  and  feel  our  God  most 
fully  was  the  God  who  wrought  out  His  benefits  for  us 
under  the  dominion  of  the  largest  and  most  eternal 
laws.  If  you  and  I  could  perfectly  investigate  and 
measure  the  causes  that  produced  it,  certainly  we  should 
see  that  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  printing  came  just 
at  that  one  point  in  the  world's  history  where  it  was 
necessary  that  it  should  come ;  just  in  its  true  fullness 
of  time — no  earher,  no  later.  If  we  saw  perfectly,  our 
eyes  and  minds  would  recognize  a  certain  impossibility 
that  it  should  have  come  a  centuiy  before — an  impossi- 
bility just  as  impossible  in  its  own  -wsbj  as  that  the  sun 
this  morning  should  have  risen  at  six  instead  of  seven. 
But  would  that  sight  anyway  weaken  the  certainty 
that  when  the  time  came  it  was  God  that  enlightened 
the  ingenuity  of  the  inventors  of  the  great  art  and 
guided  their  hands  to  the  discovery  that  was  waiting 
for  them  ?  Would  it  not  rather  intensify  and  multiply 
the  sense  of  God's  presence  by  all  the  length  of  time  in 
which  He  woidd  be  seen  to  have  been  at  work  ?  Or  if 
I  saw  the  causes  of  my  own  inner  spiritual  life,  and  saw 
a  law  of  gi'owth  there,  saw  that  I  could  not  reach  any 
high  height  of  Christian  life  except  by  slow  develop- 


60  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

ment,  that  it  is  as  impossible  for  the  soul  to  be  all  at 
once  what  it  will  be  some  day,  when  it  stands  perfected 
in  the  full  glory  of  the  throne  of  God,  as  it  is  for  the 
gray  dusk  of  the  morning  to  be  clothed  at  once  in  the 
splendor  and  luxuriance  of  noon,  what  then  ?  "Would 
that  sense  of  the  necessity  of  growth  exclude  Godf 
Would  it  make  me  turn  away  and  say,  "  Ah,  this  soul 
of  mine  is  a  self-gi-owing  thing — a  thing  with  its  own 
laws  and  fates  wrapped  up  within  itself.  I  need  not 
pray  or  thank  or  love  or  fear  about  it,  but  let  it  go  its 
own  necessary  way  "  ?  Why,  this  growth  is  God — God 
ever  at  His  gracious,  loving  work ;  and  the  longer  and 
more  orderly  its  processes  may  be,  so  much  the  more 
steady  and  serene  and  determined  on  its  end,  I  know,  is 
that  great  love  of  God  which  has  me  in  its  charge. 

So  let  men  work  away  with  their  statistics  and  their 
averages  and  prove  how  beautifully  under  all  our  hfe 
there  run  the  great  necessities  of  God.  Let  them  show 
with  their  marvelous  exactness  how  tnily  everything 
waits  for  its  full  time  and  then  comes,  and  will  not  be 
delayed,  as  it  could  not  be  hastened.  Let  us  learn  how 
in  history  and  science  and  character — everywhere — 
cause  is  the  method  of  the  universe.  The  curse  or 
blessing  causeless  cannot  come.  And  into  the  clear  light 
of  all  such  speculations  we  may  look  to  get  a  clearer 
and  more  loving  understanding  of  our  God.  I  see  Him 
now  as  He  stands  holding  back  the  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries and  institutions,  the  great  schemes  for  man's 
elevation  and  education  and  relief,  that  are  to  make  the 
next  generation  glorious,  more  glorious  than  ours — 
holding  them  back  until  their  time  is  full.  The  home 
of  the  future,  the  republic  of  the  future,  the  Church  of 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  61 

the  future — they  must  be  built  upon  the  present,  and 
they  must  wait  until  their  foundations  shall  be  laid.  I 
see  Him  lading  His  hand  upon  some  bright,  impatient 
joy  that  is  eagerly  leaping  forward  to  go  out  and  bless 
some  poor,  dark,  sori'owful  heart,  and  He  says,  "No, 
not  yet !  My  child  is  not  yet  ready  for  the  joy,  with 
that  readiness  which  can  come  only  by  the  discipline  of 
sorrow.  Wait  till  the  fullness  of  time  has  come."  I 
see  Him  gently  holding  back  the  shrouded  shape  of  a 
dark-robed  sorrow  that  with  slow,  reluctant  steps  is 
leaving  the  great  council-room  of  His  designs  where 
they  all  abide,  to  enter  like  a  heavy  shadow  into  some 
happy  home  of  hitherto  unbroken  joy.  Again  He  says, 
"  Not  yet !  Your  time  will  come.  But  now  wait  till  My 
children  grow  a  little  stronger  by  happiness ;  till  they 
win  in  the  sunlight  a  little  more  faith  and  clear-sighted- 
ness to  find  Me  in  the  darkness.  Wait  till  joy  has  made 
them  more  fit  to  use  soitow — then  you  shall  go,  then 
will  be  the  fullness  of  your  time."  How  many  house- 
holds there  are  here  where  the  sorrow  thus  will  come  in 
its  full  time  !  and  God  grant  you  the  clearness,  when  it 
comes,  to  know  that  it  is  not  the  destruction  and  con- 
tradiction, but  merely  the  completion  and  development, 
of  the  joy  that  went  before  it,  carrying  you  on  to  a 
liigher  life,  perfecting  you  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Shall  we  say  more?  Shall  we  dare  to  say  that  death 
comes  to  no  man  except  in  the  fullness  of  his  time ; 
that  God  holds  back  His  angel  and  will  not  let  him 
speak  that  word  which  no  man  can  resist — so  strong  it 
is  and  so  persuasive — till  He  sees  that  the  man's  time  is 
come  ?  What !  with  so  many  deaths  about  us  that  seem 
premature,  with  a  world  full  of  children's  graves,  with 


62  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

the  strong  man  eager  for  labor  and  doing  it  so  well 
swept  in  a  moment,  in  a  fiery  whirlwind,  from  his  un- 
finished work  ?  Shall  we  dare  to  say  in  the  face  of  all 
this  that  no  man's  death  is  premature,  that  each  is  ripe 
with  what  ripeness  is  best  for  him  in  this  garden  of  the 
Lord's  vast  culture  before  God  calls  him  to  the  next? 
Ah,  my  dear  friends,  we  must  know  more  of  that  next 
garden  and  its  cultures  before  we  can  say  it  is  not  so. 
If,  indeed,  the  childi'en's  graves  are  not  the  ends,  but 
the  starting-points  of  lives,  and  if  the  strong  man  only 
proves  his  hands  here  for  work — of  who  can  say  what 
magnitude  and  importance  ? — that  he  is  to  do  forever 
there,  then,  as  surely  as  the  body  cannot  pass  from  life 
to  death  without  a  cause  working  out  under  a  law  to  its 
result,  so  certainly  the  soul  cannot  pass  from  life  to  life 
save  by  its  cause  and  law  as  well,  and  in  the  fullness  of 
its  ripened  time. 

We  are  drawing  near  to  Christmas,  and  we  apply 
our  tnith,  as  our  text  applies  it,  to  the  birth  of  Christ. 
How  was  it  that  that  gi'eat  event,  the  greatest  that 
our  world  has  ever  seen,  followed  the  law  of  all  lesser 
events  and  came  only  when  its  causes  and  conditions 
were  complete  ?  "  When  the  fullness  of  the  time  was 
come,  God  sent  forth  His  Son." 

We  cannot  doubt  that  both  the  elements  of  prepara- 
tion of  which  we  spoke  are  present  here  as  everywhere, 
both  the  internal  and  the  external.  But  what  the  in- 
ternal preparation  for  the  Incarnation  was,  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  we  cannot  know.  "A  body  hast 
Thou  prepared  Me  "  !  How  that  body  was  prepared  and 
the  God-man  made  possible ;  how  the  new  nature  was 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  63 

made  ready  and  the  Word  made  flesh ;  how  God  ap- 
proached that  marvelous  period  in  His  eternity  when 
He  put  on  the  guise  of  a  creature  and  came  as  Christ — 
all  this  who  dares  to  tell,  who  even  dares  to  conjecture  ? 
To  know  that,  one  must  iincover  aU  the  mysteries  of 
the  divine  and  himian  natures,  one  must  know  all  the 
most  secret  and  sacred  processes  of  heaven  and  earth ; 
nay,  one  must  he  God — no  less  than  that.  Between  the 
time  when  the  great  pui'pose  of  salvation  shaped  itself 
in  the  divine  mind,  the  time  when  the  Lamb  of  God 
stood  forth  before  the  Father,  saying,  "Lo,  I  come," 
and  the  time  when  a  Babe  was  born  in  Bethlehem  who 
was  Christ  the  Lord,  came  all  the  mighty  work.  The 
Deity  was  folded  in  and  hidden  in  this  perfect  human 
nature.  The  divine  mind  and  heart  and  soul  yielded 
themselves  to  the  conditions  of  humanity.  The  love 
for  man,  the  sympathy  with  man,  which  first  prompted 
the  offer,  somehow — slowly  or  instantly,  who  can  teU  ? 
— wrought  out  into  a  visible  shape  the  human  phase 
of  the  divine  Being.  Only  when  this  was  done  was  the 
internal  preparation  perfect,  was  the  time  full,  was  it 
possible  for  Christ  Jesus  to  be  born. 

And  this  is  all  we  dare  to  say  of  the  internal  prepara- 
tion, the  preparation  of  the  manifested  life  itself.  But 
of  the  external  preparation,  the  preparation  of  the  cir- 
cumstances which  were  to  surround  the  life,  it  is  much 
easier  to  speak.  It  has  been  a  very  general  and  no 
doubt  a  very  just  belief  among  Christians  that  it  can  be 
shown  that  when  the  Saviour  was  born  into  the  world 
the  world  was  in  a  certain  peculiar  condition  which 
made  it  peculiarly  fit  for  His  reception ;  that  it  can  be 
seen  in  the  contemporary  history  of  the  Christian  era 


64  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

that  that,  of  all  times,  was  the  very  time  for  the  Saviour 
to  come  in,  and  so  that  He  came,  evidently,  in  the  full- 
ness of  time. 

That  is  too  long  a  proof  to  go  into  now.  It  requires 
a  whole  survey  not  merely  of  that  especial  period,  but 
of  others  also  with  which  it  must  be  compared.  I 
only  wish  to  point  out  one  line  of  this  sort  of  thought, 
and  that  rather  for  its  practical  suggestiveness  and 
value. 

On  Christmas  Day,  then,  when  the  angels  sang,  not  to 
the  shepherds  only,  but  to  the  whole  world,  "  Unto  you 
is  born  this  day  a  Saviour,"  there  were  in  the  world 
several  different  classes  of  men,  differently  related,  but 
all  bearing  some  relation  to  the  promise  and  to  Him  who 
was  promised.  Let  us  see  what  some  of  these  classes 
were: 

1.  First  of  all  there  were  some  very  few  who  were 
distinctly  expecting  Him  and  looking  for  His  coming. 
This  class  is  entii'ely  confined  to  the  Jews,  and  among 
them  to  the  more  spiritually  minded  and  scholarly  and 
thoughtful  Jews — Simeon  and  Anna  and  a  few  like 
them.  To  these  were  added  later,  before  Jesus  began 
to  preach,  the  converts  of  the  Baptist,  who  had  learned 
from  him  that  he  was  the  forerunner  of  Another,  and 
that  the  Messiah  was  just  about  to  come.  How  very 
few  these  were !  The  gentle  mother  and  her  husband 
Joseph,  and  those  of  their  nation  who,  without  knowing 
the  great  privilege  that  was  in  store  for  the  carpenter's 
household,  knew  that  somewhere,  in  some  of  these 
dark  days  of  Judah,  the  Saviour  was  to  come — these 
were  all ;  and  even  these,  how  blindly  they  were  look- 
ing!    How  many  of  them  had  their  own  notions  of 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  65 

just  what  He  must  be  and  just  where  He  must  come 
from,  that  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  know  Him 
and  own  Him  when  He  came  !  There  must,  I  doubt  not, 
have  been  many  hearts  in  Palestine  that  leaped  with 
sudden  joy  when  they  first  heard  that  the  Messiah  had 
been  bom  at  last,  and  only  sank  back  into  listless  de- 
spair again  when  they  went  and  searched  out  the  par- 
ticulars and  found  that  He  had  come  in  Bethlehem  and 
not  in  Nazareth.  It  could  not  be  He,  they  said,  de- 
spondently ;  and  so  they  sank  back  into  disaj)pointment 
and  were  all  the  less  ready  to  receive  Him  because  of 
this  short  delusive  hope  that  had  turned  their  eager 
faces  to  Him  for  a  moment.  So  that  this  first  class  is 
very  small.  Think  of  the  crowded  earth  and  then  see 
how  verj^  few  are  in  this  little  group  that  have  climbed 
one  special  pinnacle  of  prophecy  and  are  looking  out 
over  the  waste  and  straining  their  ears  into  the  distance 
to  listen  for  the  long-promised  footstep,  whose  sound 
they  are  sure  that  they  will  know. 

2.  But  besides  these  who  were  specially  looking  for 
the  Messiah,  for  Christ,  there  was  an  immensely  larger 
class  in  the  world  at  that  time  who  were  looking  for 
something — they  did  not  know  what.  They  reached 
their  hands  and  strained  their  eyes  in  no  one  definite 
direction.  Theirs  were  rather  the  wild  hands  of  a  man 
lost  in  the  dark  and  feeling  everywhere  for  something 
that  will  guide  him.  knowing  nothing  except  just  that 
he  is  lost,  and  that  some  one  must  come  to  find  and 
save  him.  The  character  of  that  age  is  strongly  marked 
everywhere  and  is  summed  up  all  in  one  word — dissat- 
isfaction, expectation.  This  is  a  character  that  did 
not  belong  to  the  Jews  alone.     It  reached  everywhere. 


66  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

Wherever  you  open  the  life  of  any  of  the  people  of 
that  time  you  find  this  unrest.  Eager  or  sullen,  hope- 
ful or  hopeless,  there  it  always  is.  If  you  were  to  look 
largely  into  the  literature  and  history  of  that  very 
interesting  epoch  you  would  be  much  impressed  by  it. 
But  without  going  outside  of  the  Bible  I  may  just  re- 
mind you  how,  wherever  the  life  of  the  Gentile  world 
breaks  in  a  moment  upon  the  New  Testament  narra- 
tive, it  always  seems  to  have  this  look  and  sound  about 
it.  Whether  it  be  the  Eomau  centurion  coming  to  ask 
Christ  to  heal  his  child,  or  the  other  centurion  by  the 
cross,  or  Pontius  Pilate ;  whether  it  be  the  Greeks  of 
Ephesus  or  the  Greeks  of  Athens,  or  the  Roman  gov- 
ernors at  Cesarea — everywhere  that  you  catch  sight, 
through  this  new  door  opened  out  of  Judaism,  of  any 
strong  and  thinking  man  who  is  not  a  Jew,  he  is  al- 
ways one  who  seems  to  be  standing  with  an  exhausted 
and  worked-out  religion  and  philosophy  of  life.  They 
are  idolaters  who  have  no  longer  a  belief  in  theii*  idols. 
The  effect  was  not  always  the  same.  Some  of  them,  in 
their  disappointment,  are  seen  flinging  their  old  faith 
away ;  nay,  some,  in  vexation  and  despair,  are  trampling 
all  faith  under  their  feet ;  and  yet  others  are  clinging, 
as  men  will,  with  all  the  more  intense  fanaticism  to  the 
delusion  which  they  cannot  any  more  believe,  and  fight- 
ing yet  for  their  detected  lie.  But  however  you  see 
them  you  recognize  them  all.  You  see  the  disappoint- 
ment everywhere.  That  strange  time  is  all  reaching  out 
after  something  that  it  has  not.  Never  was  the  groan- 
ing and  travailing  of  the  whole  creation  so  loud  and 
strong. 

3.  But  there  was  yet  another  class.     Besides  the  few 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  67 

who  were  on  the  lookout  for  the  Messiah,  and  the  much 
larger  number  who  were  on  the  lookout  for  something 
— they  knew  not  what — there  was  the  great  mass  of  the 
men  of  the  time  who  were  on  the  lookout  for  nothing. 
They  felt  no  need.  Their*  lives  seemed  to  them  seK- 
satisfying.  Whatever  they  were,  slaves  or  nobles,  they 
found  in  the  routine  of  daily  occupation  enough  to  keep 
their  hands  busy  and  to  keep  their  hearts  quiet,  and  so 
they  were  completely  satisfied.  But  yet  when  we  look 
back  upon  them  we  can  see  plainly  enough  that  there 
hardly  ever  was  an  age  wliich  was  so  needy  in  all  truly 
great  motives  and  methods  of  life  everywhere  as  just 
that  age  of  the  Christian  era.  It  is  hard  to  see  any- 
thing that  could  have  deeply  and  truly  fed  the  earnest- 
ness of  an  earnest  man  in  days  like  those.  The  first 
crude  fervors  of  men's  earliest  religions  had  passed 
away.  The  calm  and  reasonable  and  conscientious  de- 
votion of  later  religious  f  eehug  had  not  come.  Govern- 
ment everywhere  had  turned  to  tyranny.  Patriotism 
had  degenerated  into  local  and  envious  pride.  Philos- 
ophy had  frittered  itself  away  into  threadbare  sophis- 
tries. Charity  and  philanthropy  were  not  yet  invented. 
What  was  there  that  an  earnest  man  could  do  ?  What 
occupation  or  enthusiasm  could  bring  out  the  best  man- 
liness of  men  ?  What  chance  was  there  for  any  heai'ty 
struggle  ?  It  was  the  emptiest  age  that  the  whole  moral 
and  spii'itual  history  of  man  had  seen ;  and  just  that 
emptiness  it  was  which  made  it  the  fullness  of  time  for 
Christ.  There  never  was  an  age  which  so  needed  to  be 
saved — saved  from  itself ;  filled  with  the  power  of  sal- 
vation, which  for  a  race  or  for  a  man  must  be  devoted 
love  and  hard  work,  enthusiasm  and  duty.    It  was  out 


68  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

of  such  a  deadness  of  millions  and  millions  of  souls  that 
the  cry  for  life  came  out,  unconscious,  unmeant,  but  no 
less  recognized  by  Him  who  watches  and  answers  not 
only  the  desires  but  the  needs  of  men. 

These  were  the  three  classes,  then.  Can  you  not  pic- 
ture that  old  world  to  yourself  ?  It  is  the  hour  before 
the  sunrise.  There  are  a  few  privileged  souls  or  a  few 
brave  climbers — call  them  which  you  will — upon  the 
lofty  peak,  with  eyes  strained  eastward,  knowing  where 
the  sun  must  rise,  waiting  and  longing  and  praying  for 
its  rising.  There  just  below  them,  still  in  the  dark,  not 
yet  touched  by  the  anticipated  daylight  that  has  reached 
those  highest  eyes — still  in  the  dark,  but  wide-awake  and 
trembling  and  restless  with  the  vague  sense  that  some- 
where new  light  is  coming — are  the  great  multitudes 
upon  the  mountain-sides.  Then  down  below,  flUing  the 
valley,  lying  in  the  dark  fast  asleep,  or  playing  idle 
games,  or  chasing  phantoms  which  they  tried  to  cheat 
themselves  were  worth  the  catching,  not  even  di-eaming 
of  a  hght  to  come,  needing  everything,  but  knowing 
nothing  of  their  need,  were  the  yet  greater  multitudes 
for  whom  all  true  life  was  a  blank  or  a  despair,  who 
knew  no  high  desire.  Was  it  not  time  for  sunrise? 
Was  it  not  the  very  fullness  of  time  in  which  "  the  day- 
spring  from  on  high  visited  us,  to  give  light  to  them 
that  sat  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death  "  ? 

And  now  I  said  that  I  had  a  practical  purpose  in  this 
description  of  the  age  which  God  had  shaped  and  made 
ready  for  the  manifestation  of  His  Saviour  Son.  Let 
me  tell  you  what  it  was.  As  I  look  round  upon  this 
people  here  before  me  I  cannot  but  think  I  see  the 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  EN  ADVENT.  69 

same  three  classes  that  were  in  that  world  of  eighteen 
centuries  ago. 

1.  Are  there  not  here  the  waiters  f  Are  there  not  men 
and  women  here  who  know  well  enough  that  if  salva- 
tion from  their  sins  and  selfishness,  from  theii*  fears  and 
doubts  and  failui'es,  from  their  own  had  selves,  comes  at 
all  it  must  come  from  Jesus  the  Christ  alone,  and  they 
do  feel  a  strong  assurance  that  some  day  it  will  come 
from  Him "?  There  are  souls  that  to-day  I  cannot  find 
any  parallel  or  likeness  for  except  in  Simeon  and  Anna 
waiting  in  the  temple  year  after  year  for  the  Redeemer. 
They  ai-e  not  scoffers,  but  full  of  reverence.  They  are 
not  false,  but  true.  They  are  not  light  and  shallow,  but 
earnest  and  devout.  What  is  it  that  has  kept  you  so 
long  waiting?  Do  not  reject  Christ  just  because  He 
comes  from  Bethlehem  when  you  expected  Him  from 
Nazareth.  Do  not  refuse  the  Saviom*  because  as  He 
presents  Himself  you  find  Him  something  different  from 
what  you  painted  Him  to  yourself  before  He  came.  The 
terms  of  His  salvation  may  not  be  just  what  you  have 
supposed ;  but  will  you  let  Him  pass  you  by  for  that  ? 
Surely  there  could  be  no  more  generous  or  easy  terms 
than  these  He  offers :  "  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door,  and 
knock,"  He  says  :  ''  if  any  man  hear  My  voice,  and  open 
the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him."  What  answer  is 
there  for  you,  who  have  waited  so  long,  to  make  but 
this :  ''  Lo  !  this  is  our  God.  We  have  waited  for  Him ; 
now  He  will  save  us  "  ? 

2,  And  then  I  turn  to  others.  You  tell  me  that  you 
are  not  looking  for  Christ.  But  you  are  looking  for 
something.  You  are  not  satisfied.  You  know  you 
ought  to  be  a  better  man.     You  know  that  you  keep 


70  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT. 

sinning  when  you  ought  to  be  holy ;  that  you  are  liv- 
ing a  low  life,  doing  mean  things,  when  you  ought  to 
be  full  of  lofty  tastes  and  rich  in  noble  deeds;  that 
you  are  not  using  at  all,  or  are  misusing,  the  best  of 
the  great  powers  God  has  given  you.  When  you  look 
back  the  past  scares  you.  When  you  look  forward  the 
future  scares  you  too.  You  look  around  you,  and  the 
world  is  out  of  joint  and  things  are  going  wrong  every- 
where. What  will  you  do  ?  To  do  nothing  is  to  sink 
down  and  be  lost.  I  beg  you  to  cling  to  your  dissatis- 
faction till  it  find  some  fit  appeasing.  And  then  I  hold 
out  to  you  Christ  and  offer  Him.  As  if  you  never  saw 
or  heard  of  Him  before,  I  set  Him  here  before  you,  and 
you  miist  not  turn  away  when  you  hear  Him  say  the 
very  words  you  need :  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor 
and  are  heavy-laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

3.  And  what  shall  I  say  to  you  who  neither  want 
Christ  nor  want  anything  ?  Poor  souls,  you  are  satis- 
fied ;  that  is  the  worst  of  all  for  you.  This  worldliness, 
this  sin,  this  death  in  life,  leaves  you  with  no  compunc- 
tion or  misgiving.  There  is  no  tossing  in  the  sleep  your 
soul  is  sleeping.  And  yet  it  is  sleep — sleep  only — not 
death  yet.  There  are  powers  in  you  to  serve  the  Lord 
with,  if  you  could  only  get  them  awake  and  active. 
Yes,  powers  as  great  as  that,  even  in  you  who  think 
that  the  Almighty  made  you  just  to  dance  and  sing 
your  life  away — there  are  powers  in  you  that  migJit 
serve  Christ  with  sweet  unselfishness,  with  loving  loyalty, 
with  joyous  gratitude,  and  with  an  energy  that  would 
amaze  yourself  and  glorify  Him.  It  is  in  you  to  be  a 
Christian,  I  care  not  who  you  be ;  and  so  I  cry,  not  as 
to  one  who  has  no  powers,  but  as  to  one  who  has  them, 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT.  71 

but  is  keeping  them  useless — talents  in  napkins,  un- 
worked  mines  of  spiritual  wealth  and  joy:  ''Awake, 
thou  that  sleepest,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light." 

And  so  with  all  of  us  is  it  not  the  fullness  of  tijne  in- 
deed ?  Is  there  one  of  us  who  can  say,  "  It  is  not  my 
time  yet"?  Now  while  the  morning  is  at  hand,  the 
night  far  spent ;  now  while  we  have,  it  may  be,  but  a 
Little  while  left  us  to  come  to  Christ  or  to  come  closer 
to  Christ,  to  be  a  Christian  or  to  be  a  better  Christian  ; 
now  while  the  Bridegroom's  feet  are  close  iipon  us,  are 
sounding  already  in  the  distance,  oh,  let  our  loins  be 
girded  about,  and  our  lights  burning,  and  we  ourselves 
like  unto  men  that  wait  for  their  Lord. 

To-morrow  morning  we  shaU  be  exulting  in  the  truth 
of  a  present  Christ.  Will  it  have  a  meaning  for  aU  of 
us  1  In  these  most  solemn  days,  these  last  days  of  Ad- 
vent, I  feel  most  deeply — I  hope  we  aU  are  feehng — the 
richness  of  the  gospel  of  our  Saviour.  He  gives  Himself 
so  freely.  He  asks  nothing  but  repentance  and  faith. 
He  wants  our  souls.  O  Lord,  we  wiH  not  keep  them 
back.  Take  them  and  save  them.  Let  us  see  Thee  now 
as  men  saw  Thee  of  old  when  it  is  written  that  "  in  the 
last  day,  that  great  day  of  the  feast,  Jesus  stood  and 
cried,  saying.  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me, 
and  drink." 


V. 

CHRISTMAS  EVE. 

"Because  there  was  no  room  for  them  in  the  inn." — LtJKE  ii.  7. 

We  believe  in  the  inspiration  under  whose  guidance 
the  evangelists  wrote  not  least  because  of  their  great 
msdom  of  selection.  Every  life  is  made  up  of  a  great 
mass  of  incidents.  To  single  out  among  those  incidents 
the  ones  which  really  were  the  making  of  the  life ;  to 
put  the  finger  accurately  upon  them  so  as  to  say,  *'  This 
and  this  and  this  were  important  in  bringing  that  life 
to  its  purpose ;  this  and  this  and  this  are  significant  in 
helping  men  to  appreciate  and  understand  the  motive 
under  which,  and  the  tone  in  which,  this  life  was  lived ;  " 
to  point  out  just  those  passages  that  shall  reveal  the 
character  and  kind  of  man  whose  life  is  being  wi-itten 
— this  is  the  great  difficulty  of  biographers.  This  diffi- 
culty is  the  reason  why  we  have  so  few  good  and  so 
many  poor  biographies  among  our  books. 

"We  rather  feel  than  think  how  divinely  the  gospel 
writers  have  subdued  this  difficulty.  We  do  not  stop  to 
dwell  upon  the  fact  that  they  have  put  on  record  just 
those  incidents  of  Jesus'  life  which  let  us  most  directly 
into  an  understanding  of  Him ;  but  as  we  read  their 
story  we  find  ourselves  attaining  a  real  knowledge  of 
their  subject  such  as  no  other  writers  give.    The  things 

72 


CHRISTMAS  EVE.  73 

they  tell  are  just  the  very  things  we  need  to  know. 
Even  the  shghtest  items  they  relate  are  all  significant ; 
the  faintest  touches  bring  out  effects  and  meanings  in 
the  picture,  and  help  us  to  catch  the  idea  of  Christ  and 
of  His  mission  which  the  inspii-ing  Spirit  intended  to 
convey.  Yes,  when  the  poor  carpenter  of  Nazareth 
brought  his  wife  up  to  the  inn  at  Bethlehem,  and  they 
were  turned  away  because  the  house  was  crowded  with 
more  favored  guests,  and  her  Son  found  His  bu-thplace 
among  "the  beasts  of  the  stall"  and  His  cradle  in  a 
manger,  the  crowded  house  and  the  rejected  applicant 
take  their  place  in  the  narrative  as  true  exponents  of 
the  earthly  lot  of  Him  for  whose  nativity  there  was  "no 
room  in  the  inn  " — nay,  as  a  significant  foreshadowing 
of  the  future  of  His  gospel,  which  has  with  such  diffi- 
culty f oimd  for  itself  a  place  in  the  overcrowded  world. 

The  use  that  I  would  make,  then,  of  this  apparently 
trivial  incident  is  this :  Does  not  the  reception  of  the 
new-born  Christ  typify  with  strange  accuracy  the  re- 
ception that  His  gospel  has  met  wherever  it  has  been 
introduced  into  an  unwelcoming  world?  Is  not  this 
His  first  experience  the  experience  of  all  the  Saviour's 
life  both  in  His  flesh  and  in  His  Church — that,  crowded 
out  of  the  hospitalities  of  life,  out  of  the  inns  and 
homes  and  cheerful  haunts  of  men,  He  has  found  His 
resting-place  in  the  world's  sheds  and  mangers,  among 
the  poverty  and  degi'adation  of  our  race  ?  Wliat  is  the 
aspect  of  our  busy  and  unbelieving  world  as  you  stand 
and  look  across  it  but  the  repeated  picture  of  that 
Jewish  inn  in  which  there  was  no  room  for  Jesus  f 

For  I  believe  that  if  we  search  its  character  we  shaU 
see  that  this  is  just  the  form  which  opposition  to  the 


74  CHRISTMAS  EVE. 

cause  of  Christ  is  now  most  generally  taking.  The 
gospel  is  not  fought  against  or  frankly  met  in  any  way. 
It  is  simply  crowded  out.  The  Christian  religion  has 
won  for  itself  a  certain  great  respectability.  Men  do 
not  sneer  at  it  as  they  used  to.  Nay,  men  who  in  their 
hearts  are  anything  but  Chi-istians  are  jealous  for  the 
credit  of  the  faith  of  Chi'ist.  I  dare  say  there  has  been 
no  age  since  Jesus  lived  when  the  character  of  Jesus,  in 
its  unsullied  purity,  its  calm  consistency,  its  high-toned 
heroism,  has  been  more  proudly  lauded  or  more  cordially 
acknowledged ;  there  has  been  no  age  when  the  moral 
power  of  Christianity,  as  the  great  social  salvation  of 
states  and  communities,  has  been  more  profoiindly  felt ; 
but  yet  we  cannot  find  a  time  when  the  great  dead- 
weight, the  mere  brute  force,  of  a  sheer  overcrowded  life 
has  been  so  immense  in  keeping  out  the  personal  pres- 
ence of  the  Saviour  from  the  intimacies  of  our  hearts 

\  and  homes.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  form  that 
,our  irreligious  life  is  more  and  more  assuming — ^just 

i'a  great  inert  overfullness.  Religion  is  met,  not,  as  it 
was  a  thousand  years  ago,  by  a  man  in  mail  upon  the 
threshold,  with  a  sword  or  an  ax  or  a  firebrand  to  kill 
it  out — the  brutality  of  that  folly  is  obsolete ;  not,  as  it 
was  a  hiTudred  years  ago,  by  a  cunning  diplomatist 
in  the  vestibule  with  wiry  words  and  smooth-tongued 
irony  to  circumvent  the  new-comer  and  make  even  re- 
ligion herself  faithless  and  untrue — the  cowardice  of 
that  folly,  too,  is  dj^ing  away ;  but  nowadays,  when  the 
new  stranger  comes  up  to  the  doors,  the  opposition  is 
just  the  great,  impenetrable,  passive  fullness  of  the 
house  she  tries  to  enter.  Christ  comes  with  His  truth 
to  the  intellect.    What  is  the  answer  ?    Eveiy  chamber 


CHRISTMAS  EVE.  75 

of  the  intellect,  from  garret  to  cellai*,  is  preenga.ged. 
Science,  morals  and  physics,  politics,  history,  art^ — all 
these  are  with  us  and  must  be  royally  fed  and  lodged. 
For  this  new  appHcant  "  there  is  no  room  in  the  inn." 
Christ  comes  with  His  work  to  the  will.  But  what 
chance  for  quarters  here  when  the  very  entry-ways  of 
the  human  will  are  packed  to  stagnation  with  a  thou- 
sand little  ephemeral  plans  making  their  flj'ing  visits, 
and  a  hundred  gi'eat  absorbing  schemes  that  have  taken 
up  then*  permanent  abode?  What  answer  but  again 
that  this  great  inn  is  full?  Christ  comes  with  His 
love  to  the  great,  roomy,  hospitable  human  heart.  But 
the  hospitality — not  so  wise  as  lavish — has  it  not  been 
already  more  than  wasted  on  a  host  of  beggarl}-  and 
unworthy  claimants,  so  that  when  the  heart's  Master 
comes  there  is  no  room  to  spare?  Thus  daily  is  the 
scene  of  Bethlehem  repeated.  He  comes  unto  His  own ; 
His  own  receive  Him  not.  The  world  is  too  full  for 
Christ,  and  the  heart  too  crowded  for  its  Saviour. 

Now  if  this  be  true,  and  this  be  the  special  form 
which  ungodhness  is  taking  in  this  age  of  ours,  then 
we  must  direct  what  cai'e  we  have  for  the  advancement 
of  Christ's  kingdom  to  this  special  difficulty,  and  ask  in 
much  anxiety,  How  can  a  way  be  made  for  the  Saviour 
to  penetrate  this  crowded  life  ? 

And  first  of  aU  men  must  no  doubt  be  made  to  feel 
that  it  will  in  some  way  be  of  advantage  to  them  to  re- 
ceive Christ  into  the  plan  and  operation  of  their  lives. 
Is  not  this  the  tone  of  everything  to-day:  ''Whatever 
can  help  us,  welcome  !  Whatever  cannot  help  us,  stand 
aside  !  "  ?  Every  branch  of  industry  has  its  appropriate 
rules  and  its  own  useful  appliances.     The  Whole  ten- 


76  CHRISTMAS  EVE. 

dency  is  to  simplify  things — to  throw  away  what  is  use- 
less, to  keep  all  that  is  essential.  The  wheels  of  modern 
enterprise  spin  so  fast  that  all  that  is  not  bound  close 
to  them  by  the  strong  necessity  of  usefulness  is  flung 
away  and  got  rid  of  by  the  centrifugal  power  of  their 
speed.  The  great  design  of  life  to-day  is  to  make 
things  I'un  light  and  run  quick.  Every  heavy  impedi- 
ment that  does  not  help  the  motion  must  be  cast  off 
into  space.  But  tliis  same  great  principle  which  teaches 
us  to  tolerate  nothing  that  is  useless  teaches  us  by  a 
parallel  lesson  that  nothing  really  useful  must  be  de- 
spised. I  presume  there  never  was  a  class  of  minds 
that  gave  to  every  new  device  which  laid  claim  to  that 
highest  merit,  usefulness,  such  a  fair  test,  and,  if  it 
proved  its  claim,  such  a  free  welcome  as  it  gets  from 
the  best  and  most  active  minds  of  our  own  century. 
There  never  was  such  a  fair  field  for  a  new-comer. 
Once  prove  to  men  that  your  new  invention  has  in  it 
the  seeds  of  new  and  genuine  and  profitable  use,  and 
you  need  have  no  fear.  Meti  will  find  room  for  if,  no 
matter  how  crowded  this  great  engine-room  of  a  world 
appears  already.  What  good  is  it?  "What  can  I  do 
with  it  f  That  is  the  only  question  now  when  you  offer 
a  man  something  he  has  never  seen  before.  Self-inter- 
est, that  great  king  with  his  crown  of  gold,  has  fewer 
rebels  in  his  realm  to-day  than  perhaps  he  ever  had 
before. 

Now  I  believe  this  principle  will  help  us  in  under- 
standing this  phenomenon  of  a  world  finding  no  place 
for  Christ.  It  is  full,  veiy  full — crowded  even  to  the 
bursting  gates — with  manifold  interests  and  hopes  and 
plans ;  but  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  it  never  refuses  to  re- 


CHRIS'niAS  EVE.  77 

ceive  another  applicant  if  it  can  once  be  made  to  feel 
that  it  needs  Him,  that  He  can  be  of  use.  And  it  is 
only  because  the  world  does  not  feel  the  need — nay,  to 
put  it  blankly,  does  not  see  the  use  of  Jesus — that  Jesus 
finds  to-day  no  resting-place  except  in  her  mangers  and 
her  stalls.  If  ever,  close  and  hot  about  the  world's 
great  heart,  that  great  feeling  shall  be  brought  home — 
the  feeling  that  she  needs  a  Saviour,  and  that  the  Christ 
whose  gentle  application  is  at  her  doors  is  the  only 
power  that  can  save  her  from  sin  and  sorrow ;  if  ever 
humanity  shall  deeply  see  what  Christ  can  do  for  her, 
then,  in  spite  of  all  her  crowded  fullness,  the  gi-eat 
doors  shall  find  abundant  room  to  be  swung  back,  and 
Jesus  Christ,  the  long-rejected,  shall  be  welcomed  in  to 
take  His  place  of  honor  and  do  His  sa\'ing  work. 

So  that,  after  all,  don't  you  see  that  this  plea  of  over- 
fulhiess  is  a  false  one  ?  I  come  to  you  and  urge  on  you 
to  be  a  Christian.  You  tell  me,  "  Yes,  I  know  the  im- 
portance of  the  matter,  but  I  am  too  busy,  my  life  is 
too  full — too  many  cares,  too  many  interests.  I  have 
not  room  for  Christianity,  but  yet  I  know  its  impor- 
tance and  I  feel  its  use."  That  is  not  true.  You  do  not 
feel  its  use.  If  you  did,  no  matter  how  full  your  life 
was  you  would  find  room  for  it  just  as  you  would  for 
any  other  new  expedient  which  offered  you  a  help  you 
really  needed.  The  fact  is,  you  do  not  want  to  be  a 
Christian.  If  you  did,  the  want  would  make  you  room, 
would  make  you  time.  If  you  saw  and  felt  how  Chris- 
tianity was  to  help  you,  your  own  principles,  which  spur 
you  on  to  zeal  in  every  other  helpful  enterprise,  would 
turn  you  into  a  zealous  servant  in  the  work  of  God. 
This  is  the  true  difficulty.     What  men  need  is  not  new 


78  CHRISTJVIAS   EVE. 

offers  of  the  gospel — the  echoes  of  these  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  are  tired  with  their  long  reverberations — but 
they  want  to  be  made  to  feel  that  the  gospel,  if  it  could 
once  be  admitted  into  the  homes  of  art  and  trade  and 
politics  and  social  life,  would  be  a  real  help  to  trade 
and  politics  and  art  and  life.  They  want  to  be  made 
to  feel  that  it  is  no  useless  stranger  asking  admission 
and  free  lodging,  for  which  it  will  give  nothing  in  i-e- 
turn,  but  that  it  is  an  element  which,  if  they  admit  it, 
will  mingle  itself  with  all  their  other  interests  and  croT\ai 
them  all  with  a  better  and  more  luxuriant  success. 

FiU  a  cup  with  water  so  that  it  seems  as  if  it  could 
not  hold  another  drop.  Drop  a  bullet  in  it  and  it  makes 
the  cup  overflow.  But  you  can  add  an  amount  of  water 
double  the  bullet's  bulk  and  it  mingles  itself  with  the 
other  water  and  clings  particle  to  particle,  and  the  cup 
will  hold  it  all.  So,  if  religion  were  a  mere  dead-weight 
to  be  dropped  like  a  bit  of  lead  into  the  full  soul  of  man, 
then  you  might  saj',  perhaps,  there  "  was  no  room  " ;  but 
if  it  be  a  living  principle  that  is  to  pervade  and  leaven 
and  infuse  all  the  life  into  which  it  is  cast,  to  give  it  all 
new  consistency  and  strength,  then  there  is  room  ;  and 
if  you  can  make  men  feel  this,  they  will  make  room  to 
receive  the  gospel. 

Who  do  you  suppose  were  gathered  in  that  village  inn 
where  Joseph  and  Mary  and  the  new-born  child  were 
crowded  out  ?  No  doubt  the  usual  assembh^  of  such 
places :  stout  Jewish  farmers  come  up  to  Betlilehem  with 
their  money-bags  to  pay  the  taxes ;  a  petty  governor  or 
two,  great  with  the  pride  of  small  official  business ;  half  a 
dozen  Roman  soldiers,  brutal  in  the  insolence  of  their 
great  citizenship ;  a  few  traveling  priests ;  a  rabbi,  lay- 


CHRISTMAS  E\^.  79 

ing  down  dogmatic  oracles  to  his  wide-mouthed  hear- 
ers ;  and  a  few  inn  idlers  hanging  round  the  doorway 
or  lounging  by  the  fire — a  company  dead  and  forgotten 
centuries  ago,  crowding  the  little  inn  and  filling  it  with 
heedless  merriment;  while  Immanuel  was  born  into 
the  world  He  came  to  save  and  "  laid  in  a  manger,  be- 
cause there  was  no  room  for  Him  in  the  inn."  Little 
they  cared  where  the  poor  woman  met  her  mother's 
pain.  But  do  you  think  if  they  had  dreamed  whose 
the  birth  was  that  they  excluded ;  if  they  had  known 
what  the  new-born  might  do  for  them;  if  they  could 
have  looked  down  the  fields  of  prophecy  and  seen  what 
He  should  do  for  the  world ;  if  they  could  have  seen 
this  Church  of  ours  to-day  and  have  known  that  it 
was  the  Child  of  the  manger  whom  we  have  worshiped 
as  the  Lord  of  life — do  you  tliink  that  even  theii*  stolid 
indifference  would  not  have  thrown  the  poor  inn  door 
wide  open  and  spread  its  choicest  chamber  in  what 
faint  fitness,  they  could  devise  for  the  nativity  of  the 
Redeemer?  ijThey  would  have  found  room  enough  if 
the}''  had  la^own  it  was  the  only  Saviour  of  Jew  or 
Gentile  that  was  being  born.  And  you  would  find 
room,  dear  brother,  for  Christ  to  be  born  in  your  over- 
crowded heart  if  you  really  felt  that  in  His  bu'th 
there  lay  youi*  only  chance  of  goodness  here  and  joy 
hereafter.   , 

Thus,  then,  the  great  cause  of  this  misconceived  idea 
that  the  world  and  the  heart  have  not  room  for  Christ 
lies  here :  we  do  not  understand  the  nature  or  feel  the 
need  of  the  Christ  who  offers  to  make  our  hearts  His 
birthplace,  and  so  we  do  not  care  to  make  room  for  Him 
there.    There  is  another  reason.    By  the  figure  we  have 


80  CHRISTMAS  EVE. 

been  using,  the  birth  of  Christ  in  the  soul,  we  mean  a 
full  reception  of  His  truth,  His  character,  and  His  life- 
giving  power  among  the  essential  plans  and  purposes 
of  our  existence.  Now,  though  we  do  not  any  of 
us  fully  comprehend  that  truth,  that  character,  that 
power,  we  all  have  enough  of  heaven's  instinct  about 
us  to  feel  that  it  is  something  immeasurable,  great,  and 
glorious.  You  may  not  love  Christ  or  care  to  imitate 
Him  or  to  invite  Him ;  but  you  do  feel,  when  you  de- 
liberately think  of  Him  and  of  the  world- work  that  He 
has  done,  that  there  is  in  Him  an  immensity  of  grandeur 
and  hohness  before  which  you  grow  ashamed.  And 
when  this  perfect  ideal,  this  full  divinity  of  character, 
comes  and  demands  admission  into  your  life,  what 
wonder  if  the  meager  dimensions  to  which  your  life 
has  been  cramped  sJiow  out  in  all  their  meagerness ! 
What !  take  the  pure  Jesus  into  a  dwelling  so  impure, 
take  a  faith  so  venerable  into  a  poor  abode  so  vile  and 
base,  take  so  great  a  religion  into  so  small  a  soul  ?  In 
the  humility  of  shame  we  feel  that  Christianity,  with  its 
grand  motives,  its  divine  means,  its  stupendous  issues, 
is  on  too  large  a  scale  for  oui'  little,  trivial,  frivolous 
lives  to  harbor,  and  so  we  shut  our  doors  and  cry,  "  No 
room !  no  room  !  " 

Now  here,  it  seems  to  me,  is  just  one  of  the  divinest 
offices  of  our  religion.  It  makes  us  feel  the  littleness  to 
which  we  have  reduced  our  lives,  and  then  proclaims,  in 
contrast  with  that  littleness,  the  great  scale  on  which 
God  built  those  lives  and  the  great  capacity  God  meant 
for  them  to  have.  "  You  have  cramped  your  life,"  it 
seems  to  say.  "You  have  made  it  small  and  narrow. 
By  long  unspirituality  you  have  made  its  doors  so  low 


CHRISTMAS  EVE.  81 

that  none  but  short  or  stooping  thoughts  can  enter. 
You  have  made  its  rooms  so  mean  that  great  truths 
cannot  Uve  in  them.  But  never  dare  to  think  that  this 
was  God's  plan  for  your  life.  He  drew  its  architecture 
on  a  lordly  scale.  He  designed  for  you  great,  generous, 
capacious  hves.  He  built  you  to  be  'temples  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.'  There  are  chambers  in  your  nature, 
walled  up  by  long  obstinac}''  or  rubbished  by  long 
neglect,  which  were  shaped  and  garnished  for  His  own 
holy  occupancy.  Man — in  the  face  of  all  his  degraded 
humanity  be  it  spoken — was  made  fit  for  a  birthplace 
of  the  Christ."  If  the  manifestatioTi  of  the  Saviour  had 
done  nothing  else,  would  not  this  be  much — tliis  eter- 
nal reassertion  of  the  essential  dignity  and  capacity  of 
liuman  life  ?  The  gospel  stands  forever  in  the  midst  of 
little,  base,  degraded  lives,  and  protests  that  this  is  not 
the  true  exhibit  of  the  life  humanity  might  live.  To 
the  sensualist  who  has  turned  his  soul  into  a  home  of 
lust ;  to  the  poor  inebriate  whose  life  is  reeking  with  the 
fumes  of  stale  and  sickly  habit ;  to  the  trifler  who  has  in- 
dustriously tented  himself  about  mth  glittering  tinsel ; 
to  the  mean  man  who  has  been  deliberately  cramping 
up  his  stingy  heart,  walling  up  windows,  pinching  in 
doors,  studiously  making  his  existence  small — to  each 
of  them  the  gospel  brings  its  protest :  "  You  may  make 
your  hves  foul  and  tawdry  and  meager;  you  may 
diminish  them  and  overcrowd  them  till  thei-e  is  no  room 
for  a  noble  thought  or  for  a  pure  desii'e ;  but  you  do  it 
at  your  peril.  God  made  them  roomy;  and  there  is 
room  for  His  holy  Son  to  find  a  nativity  within  them  if 
you  will  only  set  and  keep  their  chambers  open." 
This  second  reason,  as  you  see,  may  rest  on  a  better 


82  CHRISTIMAS  EVE. 

base  and  takes  a  more  conscientious  tone  than  the  first. 
I  know  that  there  are  many  persons  who,  when  the 
offer  of  a  purer  life  and  free  salvation  by  the  gospel 
comes  to  them,  when  Christ  presents  Himself  at  their 
heart  doors  and  asks  admission,  tui'ning  and  looking 
at  the  poor  hospitality  to  which  they  can  receive  Him, 
seeing  how  small  and  foul  their  souls  have  gi'own,  how 
unworthy  of  an  occupant  so  pure,  in  sheer  humility  ai-e 
almost  driven  to  shut  to  the  door  and  say,  "  Thou  must 
not  enter  here.  There  is  no  room  for  such  as  Thou  in 
such  a  heart  as  mine,  O  Lord  !  "  But  let  me  warn  you 
how  you  yield  to  such  an  impulse.  It  is  humble,  but  it 
is  not  truly  reverent  and  is  certainly  not  the  spirit  of 
trustful  faith,  God  made  your  heart  and  knows  it 
better  far  than  you  do.  Christ  knows  whether  there 
be  room  or  not.  Once  let  Him  in  and  He  shall  find 
Him  room  where  you  have  never  dreamed  of.  He  shall 
throw  open  chambers  wholly  new  to  you,  and  you  your- 
self shall  be  amazed  when  the  great  spiritual  capacity 
of  your  nature  gradually  unfolds  itself  to  entertain  its 
spiritual  Guest. 

I  appeal  to  any  one  who  ever  watched  the  process. 
Have  you  ever  seen  a  man  thoroughly  taken  possession 
of  by  Christ?  Was  it  not  wonderful  to  watch  how 
what  had  seemed  a  low,  contracted,  insignificant  nature, 
of  meager  intellect  and  narrow  heart  and  feeble  will, 
gradually,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  new  birth  that 
was  going  on  within  it,  rose  up  and  reached  itself  out 
on  all  sides,  unclosed  new  avenues  for  spirit-influence, 
opened  new  chambers  for  accumtdating  spiritual  know- 
ledge, spreading  with  each  new  demand  into  new 
grandeur,  tiU  what  had  been  so  narrow  and  corrupt 


christjVias  eve.  83 

and  contemptible  by  nature  grew  to  a  broad,  sweet, 
open,  glorious  new  man  in  the  power  and  regeneration 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  ?  Have  you  ever  seen  a  little  man 
rise  to  a  great  Christian;  ever  seen  a  dull  and  common- 
place character  grow  absolutely  splendid  with  faith? 
If  you  have,  never  yield  to  false  humility  when  Jesus 
comes  and  asks  to  unfold  your  life  and  work  the  same 
miracle  on  you. 

These  are  the  influences,  then,  under  which  the  plea  of 
the  Bethlehem  innkeepers  has  been  perpetuated  down 
through  Christian  history.  Under  these  influences 
the  crowded  homes  of  comfort  and  content  have  closed 
their  doors,  and  in  the  mangers  of  Christendom  has 
been  the  cradle  of  the  Christ.  The  knock  was  at  the 
gates  of  palaces,  and  the  answer  came,  "  No  room !  no 
room !  We  are  too  full  already."  And  to  the  sound  of 
trumpets  and  the  dance,  the  slighted  Sa\dour  turned 
away.  It  fell  upon  the  study  door,  and  the  pale  student 
turned  from  his  books  only  to  chide  the  stranger  that 
stopped  him  on  his  way  to  wisdom :  "  No  room !  no 
room  !  "  And  the  Lord  of  aU  wisdom  turned  away  from 
the  door  of  haughty  and  mistaken  science.  It  rang 
upon  the  warehouse  gates,  and  commerce  tossed  a  beg- 
gai-'s  fee  to  the  meek  applicant,  and  bade  Him  stand  aside 
and  not  impede  the  crowding  wealth  that  was  flooding 
into  the  overflowing  treasuiy. 

Yes,  in  this  great  caravansary,  where  travelers  are 
met  midway  upon  their  journey  fi'om  eternity  to  eter- 
nity, there  has  been  room  for  every  interest  except  re- 
ligion and  for  every  friend  but  Jesus.  Truths  which 
were  to  His  truth  like  a  fii-e-spark  to  a  star,  hopes  which 
were  to  His  hope  like  the  phosphorescence  of  death  to 


84  CHRISTMAS  EVE. 

the  warm,  life-giving  sunlight,  have  found  an  open 
welcome  in  the  crowded  world.  Only  for  Jesus  there 
was  "■  no  room  in  the  inn." 

No  room !  And  is  your  heart  so  full,  my  brother  ? 
No  room  for  Jesus,  when  Jesus  is  your  only  hope  ?  No 
room  for  Jesus,  when  salvation  never  crosses  any 
threshold  where  His  feet  have  not  been  set  f  No  room 
for  Jesus,  when,  except  by  Jesus,  there  is  no  eternal 
Hfe  ?  I  warn  you,  if  it  be  so,  mahe  Him  room.  Fling  out 
youi'  choicest  treasures,  if  need  be,  as  sailors  with  the 
black  rocks  in  front  of  them,  and  the  hungry  sea  reach- 
ing up  at  them  its  cruel  mouths  on  every  side,  fling  out 
their  silks  and  gold  to  save  their  lives. 

No  room  for  Jesus !  Let  the  guests  that  keep  Him 
out  stand  up  before  Him,  and  see  how  full  of  shame 
their  faces  turn  when  they  meet  His.  They  know  (the 
spirits  of  earth  and  hell  to  whom  you  give  His  place) — 
they  know,  if  you  do  not,  whose  place  it  is  they  have 
usurped. 

No  room  for  Jesus !  I  assure  you,  my  dear  friend, 
my  heart  would  thrill  with  joy  for  you — nay,  what  is 
that  ? — the  angels  on  the  walls  of  heaven,  and  God  who 
sits  upon  the  throne,  would  know  it  with  the  ecstasy 
that  only  spirits  such  as  theirs  can  feel,  if  you  would 
open  your  closed  heart  to-night  and  find  your  Saviour 
room. 


VI. 

CHRISTMAS   DAY. 

"And  the  Word  was  made  flesli,  and  dwelt  among  us." — John 
I.  14. 

Upon  one  more  bright  Christinas  Day  we  have  come 
to  rejoice  together  in  the  birth  of  Christ.  We  want  to 
catch  at  once  the  pure  and  fresh  simplicity  of  the  story 
of  Bethlehem  as  if  we  were,  indeed,  there  to-day,  and 
all  were  going  on  just  as  it  did  so  long  ago.  And  we 
want  also  to  get  the  advantage  of  living  so  long  after 
and  understanding  the  richness  and  meaning  of  the 
story  more  than  those  first  spectators  could,  from  hav- 
ing seen  it  worked  out  into  countless  lives  and  made 
the  motive  of  the  world's  greatest  changes.  And  both 
of  these  are  offered  to  us  in  the  Bible.  We  have  at 
once  the  story  of  the  nativity  told  as  it  seemed  to  those 
who  were  at  Bethlehem  on  the  first  Christmas  Day,  and 
then  we  have  St.  John  writing  years  afterward  and 
telling  us  what  it  all  meant,  in  those  rich  and  wonder- 
ful verses  that  begin  his  Gospel ;  the  story  and  its  ex- 
planation, how  it  all  seemed  to  Mary  and  the  shepherds 
and  the  wise  men  from  the  East,  and  how  it  aU  seemed 
to  the  great  apostle  with  the  enlightenment  and  inspira- 
tion of  God  filling  him  ;  the  historj'  of  Christ's  nativity, 
and  the  philosophy  of  the  Incarnation.    I  want  to  dwell 

85 


86  CHRISTMAS  DAY. 

upon  the  first  to-day.  It  belongs  to  the  great  Christian 
festival,  not  to  search  into  the  deep  mysteiy  of  the  In- 
carnation of  God,  but  to  put  ourselves  as  thoroughly 
as  possible  into  the  places  of  those  who  surrounded  the 
Saviour's  cradle,  and  see  the  wonderful  spectacle  with 
their  eyes.  But  still  I  have  made  these  deep  words  of 
St.  John  my  text,  because  it  really  is  impossible,  as  it 
is  undesmible,  for  us  to  forget  that  there  are  deeper 
meanings  in  the  event  than  any  who  v/ere  there  had 
comprehended,  but  which  have  been  made  known  to  us. 
This  will  indicate  what  I  want  you  to  do  with  me,  if  you 
will,  to-day.  I  want  you  to  go  with  me  to  Bethlehem. 
I  want  you  to  take  the  three  groups  who  are  recorded 
in  connection  with  our  Saviour's  birth,  to  look  with 
their  eyes  and  see  Him  as  they  saw  Him,  and  at  the 
same  time,  by  your  higher  Christian  privilege,  to  look 
deeper  than  they  could  see ;  to  unfold,  as  it  were,  their 
simple  and  crude  emotions  and  find  in  them  aU  that  the 
souls  in  fullest  Christian  hght  have  ever  felt  in  refer- 
ence to  Christ ;  to  see  if  the  entire  richness  of  the  best 
Christian  experience  was  not  germinally  and  represen- 
tatively present  there  around  the  Saviour's  birth. 

1.  Who  are  the  first  group,  then,  that  are  concerned 
in  the  nativity,  that  are  gathered  about  the  birth  of 
Jesus  ?  Certainly  those  who  stood  the  nearest  to  Him. 
Certainly  His  parents,  and  especially  His  mother,  who 
had  borne  already  so  long  upon  her  heart  the  coming 
mystery.  What  was  the  nativity  to  her  whom  all  gen- 
erations have  called  blessed  as  the  mother  of  our  Lord  ? 
Wliat  should  we  see  if  we  could  look  into  her  heart  on 
Christmas  Day  ?  Painters,  you  know,  have  tried  to  tell 
the  story  in  exquisite  pictui'es  wliich  represent  the 


CHRISTMAS   DAY.  87 

mother  on  lier  knees  before  her  Child,  who  lies  before 
her.  She  is  wrapt  in  adoration  of  Him ;  she  is  lifting 
up  her  hands  in  homage ;  she  is  imploring  His  blessing 
and  owning  Him  for  her  Lord.  But  while  that  is  what 
art  has  seized  upon,  it  is  remarkable  that  there  is  not 
one  word  about  that  in  the  Bible.  There  we  have  one 
key  to  the  mothei-'s  heart :  we  have  the  beautiful  psalm, 
the  Magnificat,  which  she  sang  when  she  went  to  visit 
Elizabeth  before  the  Saviour's  birth.  And  it  is  cer- 
tainly noticeable  that  that  psalm  is  mainly  of  her  own 
privilege :  *'  He  hath  regarded  the  low  estate  of  His 
handmaiden :  for  from  henceforth  all  generations  shall 
call  me  blessed.  He  that  is  mighty  hath  done  to  me 
gi*eat  things."  It  is  not  adoration  of  her  Child.  It  is 
a  sense  of  what  that  Child's  coming  has  been  to  her. 
Because  He  has  deigned  to  be  born  of  her  she  is  forever 
blessed.  Because  of  this  close  union  between  His  life 
and  hers  she  is  lifted  up  out  of  her  insignificance.  Be- 
cause He  has  shared  her  lot,  her  lot  has  ceased  to  be 
mean  and  wretched.  She  is  sacred  because  of  the  God 
who  has  come  and  lived  in  her  life.  The  poor  Jewish 
girl  is  not  despicable,  no  one  shall  despise  her,  she 
never  will  despise  herself  again,  now  that  her  life  has 
been  capable  of  containing  the  very  life  of  God. 

Afterward,  no  doubt,  there  came  the  adoration. 
Afterward,  as  Christ  gi-ew  and  she  knew  Him  more, 
there  came  forth  in  Him  a  Divinity  which  she  could  not 
share,  before  which  she  could  only  stand  in  loving  awe. 
Afterward  she  saw  how  different  He  was  from  her. 
But  at  first  the  thought  is  of  how  they  are  one  with  each 
other,  and  of  how  by  her  oneness  with  Him  she  is 
lifted  and  glorified.     At  first  it  is  not  the  sense  of  how 


88  CHRISTINAS  DAY. 

far  His  Divinity  is  above  her,  but  of  how  truly  it  is  in 
her  and  how  it  makes  her  divine.  On  Christmas  Day 
she  is  not  on  her  knees  before  her  Lord,  but  she  is 
holding  her  Child  tight  to  her  heart  to  assure  herself 
continually  that  His  life  is  really  hers,  and  so  that  her 
life  is  really  His. 

Now  extend  all  this — make  it  not  merely  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Jewish  virgin,  but  the  consciousness  of 
humanity  at  the  birth  of  Jesus — and  we  have  this,  which 
I  hold  to  be  true :  that  the  first  thing  which  human 
nature  feels  when  it  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  the  com- 
ing of  Christ  is  the  mere  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  and  the 
illumination  and  exaltation  of  all  human  life  by  and 
through  the  Incarnation.  With  her  it  was  a  feeling  of 
personal  pride  and  privilege.  Out  of  all  the  maidens 
of  Judah  she  had  been  chosen  to  be  the  mother  of  the 
Lord.  But  with  men  to  whom  the  same  truth  comes 
in  its  larger  way  its  narrowness  is  lost;  it  becomes 
comprehensive ;  it  is  a  sense  of  the  exaltation  and  illu- 
mination of  all  humanity  together,  and  of  each  man 
only  as  he  has  a  part  in  that  humanity  by  the  coming 
of  God  into  its  flesh. 

Carry  this  out  into  a  slight  detail  with  regard  to  the 
life  of  Mary.  As  Christ  grew  older  this  first  feeling 
must  have  grown  only  stronger  with  her.  In  every- 
thing her  life  must  have  been  elevated  by  seeing  how 
her  Son  could  share  it  with  her.  Her  humble  house 
must  have  seemed  glorious,  her  simple  meal  a  banquet, 
her  husband's  workshop  sacred,  the  ordinary  household 
thoughts  not  commonplace,  because  they  were  not  hers 
alone,  but  His.  That  must  have  been  the  first  power  of 
the  Incarnation.     Only  after  that  was  fully  felt  could 


CHRISTMAS   DAY.  89 

the  second  power  of  the  Incarnation  be  experienced. 
Only  after  she  had  thoroughly  conceived  the  dignity  of 
her  daily  tasks  when  Christ  took  part  in  them  could  she 
begin  to  pei'ceive  how  differently  He  did  them  from  the 
way  in  which  she  did  them,  and  so  learn  how  her  actual 
life  fell  short  of  the  dignity  with  which  the  revelation 
of  His  birth  had  vested  it.  The  Incarnation  must  have 
stirred  her  pride  before  it  stirred  her  shame. 

So  it  ought  to  be  with  us.  So  the  fii-st  simple,  broad, 
pervading  sentiment  of  Christmas  Day  ought  to  be  of 
how  sacred  and  high  this  human  life  is  into  which  the 
Lord  was  born.  Not  merely  the  body  and  the  life  of 
the  virgin — she  was  like  aU  her  brethren  and  sisters. 
All  attempts  to  separate  her  from  them  is  a  wrong  to 
their  common  humanity.  But  the  body  and  the  life  of 
man  are  able  to  take  in  and  to  utter  God.  Christ  could 
be  born  into  such  flesh  and  such  relationships,  into 
such  duties  and  such  deUghts,  as  ours.  At  once  a  radi- 
ance streams  in  upon  them,  and  they  are  no  longer  dull. 
Their  luster  shines  out  splendidly.  Fathers,  your  labor 
for  your  children  is  not  bare  duty.  Children,  your  ser- 
vice of  your  fathers  is  not  a  weary  slavery.  Neighbors, 
your  daily  courtesies  to  one  another  need  not  be  empty 
shams.  Men  and  women,  your  bodies  are  not  base,  your 
routines  ought  not  to  be  deadening.  Each  is  worthy 
of  his  own  and  of  his  brethren's  respect ;  for  there  has 
been  an  incarnation.  This  humanity  has  held  Divinity. 
God  has  been  in  this  flesh.  O  my  dear  friends,  if 
your  lives  are  hampered  and  held  down  by  any  self- 
contempt,  by  any  feeling  that  human  life  is  low,  that  to 
be  a  man  is  to  be  something  nan*ow,  dry,  and  barren ; 
if  any  guch  thought  is  keeping  you  from  doing  broad 


90  CHRISTMAS   DAY. 

justice  to  yourself  and  to  your  brethren,  cast  it  aside  on 
Christmas  Day.  Believe  that  Christ  was  born  of  Mary. 
Let  your  soul  magnify  the  Lord  with  the  same  bound- 
ing and  leaping  sense  of  privilege  that  exalted  hers. 
Let  the  Incarnation,  with  all  its  inspirations  and  its 
shames,  possess  and  fill  your  life. 

2.  But  now  turn  to  another  group  which  also  comes 
into  close  connection  with  the  Lord's  nativity.  I  mean 
the  little  company  of  the  wise  men  who  came  travehng 
out  of  the  East,  under  the  leading  of  a  star,  to  greet 
Him.  ''  The  Tliree  Kings  "  they  have  been  called  for 
years  in  song  and  legend.  There  is  no  mention  of  any 
royalty  belonging  to  them  in  the  Bible  story,  but  here, 
as  very  often,  perhaps  we  may  see  in  the  legend  some- 
thing of  that  sort  of  secondary  revelation  which  comes 
tlii'ough  the  instincts  of  the  human  heart  and  has  shaped 
itself  into  an  addition  to  the  story  which,  whether  his- 
torically true  or  not,  expresses  a  spiritual  truth  that  is 
perfectly  in  harmony  with  the  story  to  which  it  is  fast- 
ened. The  idea  in  the  legend  of  the  kings  is  that  of  the 
loftiest  and  noblest  bowing  down  to  Jesus.  It  is  there- 
fore merely  an  additional  emphasis  laid  upon  this  second 
truth  of  the  nativity,  which  is  the  kingliness  of  the  new- 
born Clirist.  That  is  what  this  second  group  expresses. 
Mary  taught  us  of  the  dignifying  of  humanity  through 
the  Incarnation.  The  wise  men  teach  us  of  the  true 
place  of  humanity  in  obedient  subjectship  to  the  In- 
carnate. 

And  see  how  their  visit  brings  out  also  the  character 
of  the  subjectship  which  they  acknowledge  and  which 
they  represent.  The  King  whom  they  find  and  bow  to, 
before  whom  their  choicest  treasures  are  cast  down,  is 


CHRISTMAS   DAY.  91 

a  child,  a  mere  speecKless  baby.  Sitting  there  upon  His 
mother's  knee,  He  is  weakness  personified.  He  cannot 
compel  one  prostration  of  all  that  He  receives.  They 
are  bowing  down  not  to  a  sword,  for  those  feeble  hands 
cannot  hold  one  ;  not  to  a  crown,  for  that  tender  brow 
conld  not  bear  one.  They  are  bowing  down  to  a  nature 
which  shines  all  the  more  clearly  through  the  weakness 
of  the  fiesh  in  which  it  has  enshrined  itself.  They  are 
like  true  corn-tiers  before  their  infant  Sovereign,  giving 
Him  a  loyalty  wholly  different  from  the  sulky  submis- 
sion which  a  conquered  soldier  renders  to  his  conqueror. 
They  offer  Him  their  obedience,  not  because  they  have 
to  in  any  grosser  or  material  sense,  but  because  their 
kingly  souls  own  in  Him  a  soul  more  kingly.  It  is  all 
of  the  soul.  That  is  its  dignity,  and  that  is  what  is  rep- 
resented by  the  Greek  monarchs  kneeling  before  the 
little  Child. 

And  so  they  represent  the  perpetual  acknowledgment 
of  Christ  as  the  spiritual,  and  so  the  real.  King  of  men. 
This  Christmas  scene  is  the  picture  of  the  way  in  which 
the  souls  that  know  Christ  always  take  Him  for  their 
Lord  and  Master.  It  is  the  only  kingship  that  the 
Savioui*  wants — not  that  which  awes  and  frightens  men 
with  the  drawn  sword  which  it  holds  over  them,  but 
that  which  bows  them  into  a  far  more  complete  submis- 
sion by  the  felt  majesty  of  His  character  and  the  desire 
to  serve  a  Master  who  is  so  gracious  and  so  great. 
Eveiy  subtle  and  mysterious  and  sacred  influence  draws 
such  servants  to  Him,  as  the  soft  and  silent  star  led  the 
wise  men.  And  when  such  ser^-ants  come  where  He  is 
they  find  nothing  to  fear — only  the  divine  pity  and  love 
and  holiness  incarnated,  as  gentle  as  a  child ;  and  they 


92  CHRISTMAS  DAY. 

serve  Him,  not  because  they  must,  but  because  their 
whole  soul  feels  the  privilege  and  glory  of  such  obedi- 
ence. See  how  this  comes  home  to  our  life.  When  a 
man  submits  to  a  failure  which  he  knows  that  God  sent 
him  because  he  cannot  help  submitting,  there  is  nothing 
of  the  Christmas  spirit  there.  When  a  man  relieves 
a  poor  beggar's  need  because  the  poor  beggar  will  be 
dangerous  to  him  if  he  is  not  helped  and  grows  desper- 
ate, there  is  no  Christmas  spirit  there.  When  a  young 
man  restrains  his  passions  because  his  health  or  reputa- 
tion will  suffer  if  he  lets  them  run  their  race,  it  is  not 
the  Christ  of  Christmas  to  whom  lie  yields.  But  when 
you  bear  your  disappointment  because  it  is  good  to  be 
trained,  even  to  be  disappointed,  under  G  od's  education ; 
when  you  help  the  poor  man  because  it  is  a  joy  to  min- 
ister to  Christ,  and  the  poor  are  Christ  to  you ;  when 
you  say  •'  No  "  to  your  lusts  because  it  is  a  glory  to  be 
pure  through  grateful  emulation  of  Him  who  is  purity 
itself — then  you  are  coming  in  the  wise  men's  spirit  to 
do  the  wise  men's  act :  to  claim  Christ  for  your  King, 
and  dignify  your  life  by  obedience  to  Him. 

So  that  on  Christmas  Day  the  human  life  not  merely 
feels  Christ  come  down  to  c'aim  it,  and  so  a  man  learns 
what  his  true  honor  is,  but  also  it  goes  up  to  claim  Christ, 
and  by  entering  into  His  service  to  begin  its  fullest  life. 
What  a  relief  it  is !  I  think  of  those  old  wise  men. 
What  worthless  kings  they  had  lived  under !  What 
unrule,  what  misrule,  they  had  known  in  the  cruel, 
treacherous  East,  where  their  days  had  been  passed ! 
Perhaps  they  really  were  kings,  and  then  how  unkingly, 
how  unworthy  of  their  name,  they  knew  that  their  gov- 
ernment had  often  been !    But  here  was  a  true  King  at 


CHRISTaiAS   DAY.  93 

last.  Men  would  not  own  Him.  He  was  only  a  baby, 
so  weak  and  so  poor.  But  that  was  nothing  to  them ; 
they  had  found  their  King  in  Him  and  were  satisfied. 
So  no  matter  how  men  find  fault,  no  matter  how  they 
say,  "  Oh,  it  is  only  Jesus  Christ ;"  when  you  have  really 
found  your  King  in  Him,  and  the  law  of  your  life  is  to 
do  His  will  out  of  love,  then  peace — His  peace — shall  de- 
scend upon  you.  No  more  distraction  and  rebellion, 
but  calm,  sure,  happy  going  forward  through  His  service 
into  His  likeness  here  and  hereafter. 
Co.  But  there  is  one  more  group  which  no  one  who 
thinks  of  Christmas  Day  forgets :  "  There  were  shepherds 
abiding  in  the  field,  keeping  watch  over  their  flock  by 
night."  How  familiar  and  how  full  of  rich  association 
these  old  words  have  grown  !  Try  to  think  what  their 
story  must  mean,  what  contribution  it  makes  to  the 
sjTnphony  of  meaning  in  which  all  these  attendants  on 
the  bii'th  of  Christ  unite.  Remember  what  is  told  us. 
They  heard  a  song  of  angels,  a  voice  from  heaven  tell- 
ing them  that  a  Saviour  was  bom  in  Bethlehem,  and 
that  glory  had  come  to  God  and  peace  had  come  to 
men.  Then  they  simply  stand  looking  at  one  another, 
as  if  in  dumb  wonder.  Then  they  can  only  say  to  one 
another,  "  Let  us  go  to  Bethlehem  and  see  this  strange 
thing."  Then  they  come  and  find  Christ,  and  then  they 
go  abroad  to  tell  other  men  about  Him.  That  is  all. 
There  is  a  certain  dumb,  blind  movement  about  all  they 
do,  yet  with  a  certain  simple,  eager  straightforwardness 
about  it.  kThey  sing  no  psalm  like  Mary.  They  do  not 
follow  the  star  nor  go  to  Herod  like  the  wise  men. 
They  simply  hear  a  voice  from  heaven  telling  them  that 
there  is  a  Saviour  and  where  He  is,  and  they  say,  "  Let 


94  CHRISTMAS  DAY. 

US  go  there."  And  they  do  go  there  and  they  do  find 
Him.  I  am  sure  that  I  need  not  tell  you  what  an  eter- 
nal element  in  Christian  life  they  represent.  Always 
there  will  be  those  who  will  be  exalted  with  the  thought 
of  the  Incarnation,  upon  all  whose  life  and  occupations 
it  will  cast  a  glorifying  light.  Always  there  will  be 
those  who  out  of  much  unrest  and  anarchy  will  seem  to 
come  into  a  rich  and  conscious  peace  as  they  submit 
themselves  to  Christ's  kingship.  But  such  experiences 
wiU  always  seem  too  subtle  for  some  souls.  Always 
there  will  be  many  whose  whole  experience  will  be 
merely  this:  that,  hungry,  needy,  empty,  wanting  a 
Saviour,  they  just  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  teUing 
them  that  the  Saviour  whom  they  needed  had  come,  and 
they  just  went  to  Him  and  found  Him  all  they  wanted, 
and  then,  like  the  poor  shepherds,  "made  known 
abroad  "  to  other  men  all  that  had  come  to  them.  No 
doubt  in  their  experiences,  simple  as  they  seem,  the 
whole  richness  of  those  others  wiU  reaUy  be  included. 
But  to  the  multitude  of  human  souls  Christ  will  be 
simply  the  Satisfier  revealed  from  heaven,  and  they  will 
turn  to  Him  almost  as  a  creature  shut  up  in  the  dark 
turns  without  thought,  without  plan  or  anticipation,  to 
any  corner  of  its  darkness  where  a  bright  light  sud- 
denly shines. 

Are  there  not  moments  in  the  Christian  life  of  all  of 
us  when  this  alone  is  all  om-  Christianity  ?  Men  tell  us 
this  and  that  about  Jesus,  this  and  that  subtle  thought 
about  the  mystery  of  His  nature,  this  and  that  profound 
theory  of  the  work  by  which  He  makes  Himself  our  re- 
deeming King.  We  do  not  doubt  and  we  do  not  deny. 
It  is  as  if,  when  we  were  turning  with  full  heart  aching 


CHRISTMAS  DAY.  95 

for  sympathy  to  find  our  dearest  friend,  some  one  should 
stop  us  and  tell  us  deep  things  about  the  philosophy  of 
friendship.  We  do  not  doubt  and  we  do  not  deny.  It 
may  be  true.  No  doubt  it  is  true.  But  aU  is  overswept 
and  drowned  for  the  time  by  a  blind,  eager,  passionate 
longing  of  the  heart  that  needs  Christ  to  get  to  Hini. 
Men  tell  us  why  we  need  Him.  We  cannot  listen,  but 
our  heart  is  full  of  one  consciousness :  that  we  do  need 
Him.  Our  lips  can  shape  only  one  question :  "Where 
shall  we  find  Him  ?  "  Oui*  wills  are  all  absorbed  in  one 
strong  resolution :  "  Let  us  go  now  even  unto  Him."  It 
is  good  for  us  to  think  as  richly  and  deeply  of  Christ  as 
we  can.  It  is  good  for  us  to  analyze  in  patient  medita- 
tion all  that  He  is  to  us  and  all  that  we  can  be  toward 
Him.  But  oh,  let  us  beware  lest  any  subtlety  of  thought 
or  depth  of  meditation  ever  deadens  or  dulls  in  us  that 
first  great,  deep  longing  of  the  soul  for  Hun  who  is  its 
only  Saviour.  In  deepest  gi'ief,  in  uttermost  perplexity, 
often  in  great  and  overwhelming  joy,  always  in  con- 
scious sin,  that  yearning,  that  unquestioning  and  pas- 
sionate desire,  asserts  itself.  It  is  as  instinctive  as  the 
movement  of  the  hurt  child  to  its  mother,  or  of  the 
parched  beast  to  the  river.  Always  at  the  bottom  of 
such  strong  experience  what  is  stirred  really  is  the  sense 
of  sin,  and  that  none  but  the  Jesus  sent  to  take  away 
our  sins  really  can  relieve.  By  His  forgiveness,  by  Him- 
self given  to  us.  He  does  forgive  it,  and  then,  while  others 
call  the  wondrous  Lord  by  partial  names  that  utter  some 
one  side  of  His  w€>ndrousness,  to  us  He  has  but  one  name 
— Saviour.  He  is  that  and  that  alone,  and  all  besides 
only  as  it  is  wrapped  up  in  that. 

Who  is  this,  then,  that  lies  once  more  to-day  before 


96  CHRISTMAS   DAY. 

the  world,  tlie  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man,  at  Bethle- 
hem? Mary  bows  down  and  learns  the  Incarnation 
and  feels  the  solemnity  and  sublimity  of  the  human  life 
into  which  Divinity  has  entered.  The  wise  men  come 
and  find  their  King  in  this  weak  babe.  The  shepherds 
see  the  hope  of  Israel  fulfilled,  the  Saviour  come.  Oh, 
on  this  Christmas  Day  let  us  be  with  them  all.  Let  us 
feel  thrilhng  through  this  humanity  which  we  so  often 
scorn  the  glorifying  fire  of  the  Incarnation.  Let  us  give 
up  our  lives  to  Him  and  beg  that  He  will  rule  them. 
But,  more  than  aU,  let  us  give  our  souls,  hungry  and 
sinful,  a  Christmas  leave  to  go  to  Him  who  is  theii' 
Saviour,  whom  they  will  know  for  theii*  Saviour  if  we 
let  them  go  to  Him. 

It  is  a  day  of  joy  and  charity.  May  God  make  you 
very  rich  in  both  by  giving  you  abundantly  the  glory 
of  the  Incarnation,  the  peace  of  Christ's  kingship,  and 
the  grace  of  Christ's  salvation. 


vn. 

SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

"And  because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  His 
Son  into  your  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father." — Gal.  iv.  6. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  as  if  this  were  the  very  text  that 
we  needed  for  the  morning  after  Christmas  Day,  The 
festival  is  over,  and  yet  its  spirit  is  stiU  all  about  us, 
and  its  meanings  are  perhaps  growing  clearer  to  us 
than  they  were  yesterday.  It  is  somewhat  as  when, 
after  the  first  excitement  of  a  friend's  arrival  is  over,  we 
sit  down  and  calmly  tliink  of  what  his  coming  means, 
and  of  what  difference  it  will  make  in  our  life.  The  joy 
of  his  welcome  is  still  there,  but  its  tumult  has  grown 
stUl.  So  the  birth  of  Christ,  which  we  celebrated  yes- 
terday, is  not  simply  a  brilliant  and  beautiful  point  in 
history.  It  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  order  in  the 
human  story ;  and  to  any  man  who  makes  it  his  great 
event,  it  is  the  opening  of  a  new  volume  of  existence, 
with  new  and  infinitely  deeper,  clearer  meanings. 

And  this  is  just  what  St.  Paul  says.  In  the  verses 
that  went  before  he  has  just  been  telling  the  story  of 
the  nativity :  "  When  the  fullness  of  the  time  was  come, 
God  sent  forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  itnder 
the  law,  to  redeem  them  that  were  under  the  law,  that 
we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons."     There  is  the 

-»7 


98  SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

story.  The  Child  of  the  woman,  who  was  also  the  Son 
of  God,  came  to  tell  all  the  children  of  women,  all 
humanity,  that  they  were  sons  of  God  too,  and  to  bring 
those  who  would  receive  Him  so  close  to  God  that  their 
sonship  should  be  a  reality  to  them,  a  life;  that  they 
should  receive  the  adoption  of  sons.  That  is  what  God 
sent  Jesus  for;  and  now  when  Jesus  has  really  come 
and  done  His  work,  and  men  by  Him  have  become  the 
sons  of  God,  this  is  what  happens :  because  men  are 
God's  sons,  the  Spirit  of  that  Son  through  whom  they 
know  their  sonship  enters  them  and  takes  possession 
of  them,  until  their  whole  life  becomes  a  turning  back, 
an  appeal,  a  cry,  a  trustful,  yearning  claiming  of  their 
Father,  a  crying  "Abba."  And  "Abba,"  you  under- 
stand, is  nothing  but  the  Hebrew  word  for  Father. 

Here,  then,  is  the  whole  process  of  redemption,  and 
I  said  that  it  seemed  to  me  the  very  text  for  to-day. 
Close  to  the  birthday  of  the  Redeemer  what  can  I  preach 
to  you  about  but  His  redemption  ?  With  the  songs  of 
wondering  angels  and  the  footsteps  of  wondering 
shepherds  yet  in  our  ears,  we  cannot  talk  of  anything 
but  what  He  who  stirred  their  wonder  came  to  do.  No 
partial  thought  of  life,  however  true ;  no  single  duty, 
however  important  it  may  be,  can  di'aw  us  off  to-day 
from  the  sincere  attempt  to  comprehend  in  its  complete- 
ness the  work  of  Him  whose  life  covers  all  life,  and  in 
obedience  to  whom  all  duty  is  included.  Feeling  this, 
I  may  ask  you  to  reach  your  thought  out  with  me  wliile 
I  try  to  tell  what  Christianity  means  by  its  one  great, 
all-embracing  word,  redemption.  We  shall  be  false  to 
the  spirit  of  Christmas  time  if  in  speaking  of  our  great 
theme  we  fail  to  be  simple,  clear,  and  direct. 


SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS.  99 

In  these  verses  of  St.  Paul's,  then,  see  what  persons  or 
powers  are  brought  together.  We  are  impressed  first 
of  all  by  the  great  gathering  of  interests.  Nothing  that 
is  really  majestic  in  the  universe  is  absent.  Fii'st  there 
is  the  Father  of  all  things — He  who,  as  the  fountain  and 
origin  of  life,  gathers  into  Himself  the  complete  richness 
of  that  word  Father.  From  Him  proceeds  the  action  of 
this  whole  drama :  "  God  sent  forth  His  Son."  Then, 
second,  there  is  the  Son  of  God,  Jesus  Christ,  born  of 
a  woman,  incarnate,  coming  for  a  great  work — "  to  re- 
deem them  that  were  under  the  law."  Then,  third,  there 
is  the  Spirit  of  this  Son,  whom,  after  the  Son  has  done 
His  redeeming  work,  the  same  God  sends  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  human  heart  and  fill  it  with  heavenly 
longings  and  desires :  "  God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of 
His  Son  into  your  hearts."  And  then,  lastly,  there  is  man, 
to  whom  this  heart  belongs,  for  whom  this  work  is 
done,  standing  at  the  end  of  the  whole  process,  claim- 
ing the  Father  of  all  things  as  Ms  Father,  and  looking 
up  to  Him  with  confidence  and  love.  Were  there  ever 
verses  that  had  a  subhmer  occupancy  ?  God  is  there, 
and  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  in  the 
midst  of  them  all,  as  the  being  for  whom  they  all  are 
working,  there  is  man.  As  the  windows  of  these  verses 
open,  this  is  what  we  see :  all  the  prevalent  influence  of 
heaven  gathered  around  man,  and  by  its  united  power 
bringing  him  into  the  perfect  sympathy  of  God.  The 
Father  sees  him  and  loves  him ;  the  Son  comes  and 
seeks  him;  the  Spirit  spreads  through  his  heart  the 
sense  of  all  this  love  ;  and  then  he,  loved,  redeemed,  and 
quickened,  reconciled  to  God,  is  seen,  at  the  last,  lifting 
up  his  hands  and  claiming  God,  crying,  "  Abba,  Father," 


100  SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

What  a  vast  chorus  of  sublimest  life !  How  the  soul 
stands  amazed  aud  awed !  Here  is  all  heaven  and  all 
that  is  capable  of  heavenliness  upon  earth  met  together, 
and  the  end  of  their  meeting  is  complete  accord.  God 
is  pouring  His  life  into  man.  Man  is  sending  back  his 
tribute — rendering  his  life  to  God.  It  is  the  chorus  of 
reconciled  Divinity  and  humanity. 

Now  let  us  try  to  put  into  the  plainest  and  least  ex- 
alted language  the  truths  about  God  and  man  which  are 
involved  in  all  this  glowing  pictui'e.  What  does  it 
really  mean,  this  meeting  of  God  and  man  ?  Let  us  see 
whether  they  are  truths  which  we  can  understand  and 
recognize.  The  j&rst  truth  is  that  man  belongs  to  God 
by  nature.  If  that  is  not  true,  then  there  is  no  possi- 
bility of  any  rehgion — if  it  be  not  true  that  God  made 
man  in  His  own  image,  with  the  capacity  of  living  a  life 
that  should  be  like  His  own.  But  the  Bible  says  it  is 
true,  and  however  men  hesitate  at  other  things  which 
the  Bible  says,  their  hearts  bear  witness  in  them  to  the 
truth  of  that,  and  they  do  believe  it.  Every  movement 
of  conscience  when  they  do  wrong ;  every  leap  of  enthu- 
siasm at  the  sight  of  goodness,  as  if  they  saw  one  fresh 
from  the  land  where  they  themselves  belonged ;  every 
indignation  with  themselves  ;  all  their  highest  memories 
and  hopes,  are  their  instinctive  testimonies  that  they 
know  they  are  God's  children.  He  is  their  Father. 
That  is  the  first  truth,  on  which  everything  else  de- 
pends. And  as  real  as  this  truth  of  man's  belonging 
with  God  is  the  truth  of  man's  estrangement  from  God. 
That,  too,  is  both  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  heart :  in  the 
Bible  in  the  history  of  the  type-nation,  the  story  of  the 
Jewish  life ;  and  in  the  heart  in  the  testimony  which 


SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS.  101 

every  man's  conscience  gives  of  how  selfish  his  life  is, 
of  how  he  forgets  the  duty  and  lets  go  the  privilege  of 
living  for  God.  Tell  me,  is  there  one  of  you  who,  if  a 
voice  which  he  must  answer  asked  him,  ''  Do  you  belong 
to  God?"  would  not  answer,  proudly,  "Yes"?  And 
how  many  there  are  who,  if  the  same  voice  asked  them, 
"  Do  you  serve  God,  and  have  you  kept  fast  hold  of  the 
truth  that  He  loves  you  ?  "  would  not  have  to  answer,  in 
sadness  and  humiliation,  "  No  "  !  And  the  next  truth 
is  Christ.  It  stands  written  where  we  cannot  doubt  it 
that  One  who  not  merely  belonged  to  God,  but  was  God, 
came  and  set  as  a  visible  fact  into  the  midst  of  man's 
life  that  which  man  had  forgotten  or  lost  out  of  his 
feeble  grasp:  that  God  loved  men  intensely,  unspar- 
ingly, even  to  tlie  mysterious  extent  of  pain  and  death ; 
and  One  who  likewise,  by  the  human  life  of  devotion 
and  obedience  which  He  lived,  reclaimed  for  man  the 
right  and  power  to  serve  God  like  a  son.  And  then 
the  truth  of  inspiration :  that  from  this  Saviour  there 
goes  forth  a  Spirit  which  finds  out  the  hearts  of  men 
and  touches  them  and  melts  in  with  them  and  makes 
itself  a  part  of  them,  and  spreads  through  every  vein 
of  all  their  life  these  two  truths  of  the  Christ  whose 
Spirit  He  is :  that  God  loves  man,  and  that  man  is  his 
true  self  when  he  is  filially  serving  God.  He  is  the 
Spirit  of  regeneration  or  a  new  birth,  because  the  power 
of  these  truths  thoroughly  fiUing  a  man  makes  him  a 
new  life.  And  then,  once  more,  there  is  the  truth  of 
restoration.  When  this  Spirit  really  occupies  a  man, 
when  he  is  living  the  new  life  whose  essence  is  that  he 
is  God's  child,  his  nature  opens  like  the  nature  of  a 
plant  brought  out  of  foreignness  where  it  does  not  be- 


102  SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

long  and  set  into  its  native  soil,  or  like  the  nature  of  a 
child  early  stolen  from  its  home,  long  kept  in  a  de- 
graded life,  at  last  brought  back  and  set  in  the  old 
household,  under  his  father's  care,  under  his  mother's 
love.  Look,  as  he  sits  there,  how  bewildered  memories 
come  back  over  his  perplexed  face,  how  strange  famili- 
arity comes  out  in  the  unfamiliar  furniture,  how  the 
long-smothered  childship,  like  a  frozen  sap,  begins  to 
stir  at  his  heart,  and  his  dead  life  opens,  new  thoughts 
come  vaguely  to  him,  new  feelings  flush  his  cheek  and 
fill  his  ej^es,  the  colors  of  his  whole  life  deepen,  and 
every  newly  wakened  sense  is  flooded  with  the  one 
sufficient  and  supreme  conviction  that  he  is  at  home. 
There  is  his  father  and  he  is  that  father's  child.  So  the 
man  in  whom  the  Spirit  of  Christ  has  thoroughly 
wrought  home  the  message  of  Christ — that  he  is  God's 
son — comes  back  into  his  Fathei*'s  house,  and  as  he  sits 
there  his  sonship  rises  like  a  rising  flood  around  him, 
tni  his  whole  life  becomes  the  utterance  of  it,  and  he 
cries,  not  merely  with  his  hps,  but  with  every  activity 
of  his  awakened  being,  "  Abba,  Father." 

These  are  old  truths.  A  long  time  you  have  heard 
them.  I  have  preached  them  to  you  for  these  many 
years,  and  I  cannot  say  how  many  years  you  heard 
them  before  I  began  to  preach  them  to  you.  And  yet 
I  never  can  preach  them  without  feeling  a  fresh,  new 
hope  that  the  grandeur  of  the  circle  which  they  em- 
brace, the  truth  of  the  story  of  humanity  which  they 
teU,  may  come  to  you  as  it  has  not  come  before.  I  seem 
to  feel  it  specially  this  morning.  How  majestic  is  the 
circle  marked  by  this  great  opening,  advancing  truth  of 
man's  reconcihation  to  God !     How  it  moves  from  the 


SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS.  103 

light  of  man's  first  ideal  into  the  darkness  of  his  actual 
experience,  and  then  sweeps  grandly  back  into  the 
brightness  of  his  redemption!  It  begins  with  the 
Fatherhood  and  childhood.  It  sees  the  childhood  stray 
away  into  selfish,  sinful  independence,  and  then  it  closes 
with  the  Fatherhood  and  childhood  once  again  restored. 
AU  history  is  comprehended  in  it.  All  the  books  of  liis- 
tory,  all  the  stories  of  the  nations,  are  but  single  beads 
on  the  great  string  of  this  encircling  truth.  And  then, 
with  that  strange  identity  which  always  runs  between 
the  two,  it  is  as  time  of  the  individual  life  as  of  the 
world's  life.  Each  of  us  also  has  his  ideal  sonship,  his 
actual  estrangement,  his  redeeming  Christ,  his  inspiring 
Spirit,  and  then  his  real  sonship,  in  which  he  rests  for- 
ever. All  other  philosophies  of  life  seem  to  me  so  thin 
and  meager  by  the  side  of  this.  All  accounts  of  sin  are 
weak  except  that  which  makes  it  the  wilful  departure 
from  Ood  into  selfishness.  All  accounts  of  goodness 
seem  insufficient  save  those  which  see  in  it  the  effort  of 
God's  child  after  his  lost  sonship. 

I  want  so  much  that  you  should  feel  and  understand 
it  all  that  I  venture  to  put  it  in  yet  one  more  figure. 
It  is  like  an  island  of  which  some  great  king  is  lord— 
a  noble  king,  ready  to  help  and  lift  his  people ;  a  true 
king,  really  the  soiu'ce  and  fountain  of  his  land's  pros- 
perity. That  is  the  first  primal  relationship.  He  be- 
longs to  them  and  they  to  him.  Then  comes  rebellion : 
"  We  will  not  have  this  man  to  rule  over  us."  The 
banner  of  revolt  is  set  up.  The  castles  of  the  sovereign 
are  broken  down.  The  land  goes  to  waste.  The  reck- 
less rebels  tear  to  pieces  the  very  works  which  the  sov- 
ereign has  built  for  their  protection.     Then  comes 


104  SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

reconquest.  That  sovereign  sends  himself  under  some 
representative,  some  true  son  of  his  authority.  The 
champion  enters  in,  and  in  their  own  behalf  conquers 
the  insurgents  and  crushes  them.  He  defeats  them  in 
their  rebellion  that  he  may  bring  them  back  into  obedi- 
ence. He  sets  the  banner  of  the  king  safe,  strong,  un- 
assailable, once  more  in  the  reclaimed  island.  Then 
what  comes?  Through  the  streets  of  that  reclaimed 
island  goes  a  new  messenger,  the  self  of  the  king  under 
some  new  representative  ;  the  intention,  the  spirit,  of  the 
king  and  of  the  conqueror,  proceeding  from  the  ruling 
father  and  the  reconquering  son.  Through  the  whole 
land  he  goes,  awakening  everywhere  the  slumbering 
loyalty,  bearing  in  his  hands  the  righteous  laws  which 
show  how  their  king  loves  them,  planting  Jiim  anew  in 
every  household,  making  men  know  that  he  is  what 
their  disorder  needs  to  turn  it  into  order,  and  what 
their  misery  needs  to  make  it  prosperous.  And  shortly, 
out  of  the  farthest  corners  and  the  inmost  center  of  the 
land,  there  rises  a  great  stir  of  loyalty.  The  mountains 
blaze  with  bonfires  and  the  valleys  ring  with  songs  of 
reconciliation.  The  people  have  come  back  and  found 
their  king,  and  all  the  busy  hum  of  renewed  labor,  and 
the  shouts  of  joy  that  ring  through  all  its  hfe,  are  but 
that  island's  "  Abba,  Father  "  to  its  new-found  lord. 

This  is  the  gospel  of  reconciliation.  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Spirit  have  met  in  their  divine  omnipotence 
to  rescue  man.  Remember  it  does  not  float  in  the  mere 
atmosphere  of  theory,  where  it  seems,  perhaps,  as  if  we 
had  placed  it  aU.  It  is  brought  close  to  the  heart  that 
will  receive  it  by  aU  those  languages  which  the  heart 
knows  best.     The  love  of  the  Father  is  interpreted  by 


SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS.  105 

all  the  tokens  of  His  love  whieli  appeal  to  the  lower 
lives.  All  nature,  with  her  voices  of  beneficence,  claims 
the  Son  for  his  Father.  All  the  capacities  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  are  in  him  assert  the  Father  whom 
they  echo  and  from  whom  they  came.  And  the  re- 
deeming Son  is  full  of  pitiful  and  powerful  appeal  by 
the  tragedy  of  His  cross.  While  He  is  conquering  man 
out  of  his  rebellion,  He  is  at  the  same  time  winning  his 
heart  by  suffering  for  him.  And  the  Spirit  who  has 
brought  Christ  to  us  has  shed  His  influence  out  of  every 
most  familiar  and  appealing  thing.  As  the  sun  that 
lightens  us  makes  all  the  objects  round  us  the  reflectors 
and  distributers  of  his  radiance,  and  so  brings  his  light 
to  us  clothed  with  the  clearness  that  belongs  to  them,  so 
to  the  Christian  the  Spirit  of  his  Saviour  seems  to  have 
subsidized  everything  to  make  some  new  and  more  per- 
fect revelation  of  Him.  The  home  relations  and  the 
things  in  nature,  our  books,  our  friends,  our  thoughts, 
have  all  been  made  interpreters  of  Christ.  Oh,  there 
are  times  when,  as  one  sits  in  meditation  or  moves 
quietly  about  in  work  for  Jesus — when  all  this  seems  so 
rich  and  plain.  A  beautiful,  serene  simplicity  seems  to 
come  forth  out  of  this  complicated  snarl.  We  catch  the 
music  of  one  great  pervading  purpose  in  all  this  tumult 
and  clatter.  It  is  all  redemption  woi'king  out  its  plans. 
God  made  that  hillside  so  perfect  in  order  that  He 
might  show  me  His  fatherly  love.  Christ  gave  me  this 
task  to  do  that  I  might  understand  His  self-sacrifice  for 
me.  The  Spirit  brought  me  into  my  friend's  friendship 
that  it  might  so  interpret  to  me  the  friendship  of  my 
God.  At  such  times  all  seems  plain.  The  world  is  for 
the  sons  of  God,  and  all  that  goes  on  in  the  world  is 


106  SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

reclaiming  and  training  their  sonship.  The  whole 
creation  is  waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of 
God.  Those  are  the  times  when  the  world  is  ideal  and 
beautiful  and  sacred. 

It  is  always  needful  to  ask  what  any  general  theory 
of  life  has  to  say  to  the  great  bui'dens  and  hindrances 
of  living,  to  those  tilings  which  are  always  coming  in 
to  make  men  tremble  or  rebel  at  life.  No  matter  how 
noble  or  how  compact  your  theory  may  be,  if  it  has  no 
word  for  these,  no  help  for  those  who  are  suffering 
under  these,  it  cannot  take  possession  of  men  and  hold 
them. 

Let  us  ask,  then,  What  has  this  gospel  of  reconcilia- 
tion to  say  to  trouble,  to  those  keen  hours  of  suffering 
when  the  light  seems  to  have  gone  wholly  out  of  life 
under  some  cloud  of  sorrow?  What  had  it  to  say 
to  you  when  the  light  of  your  house  was  darkened  and 
the  life  that  had  made  your  life  worth  living  was 
snatched  away  from  you  ?  Whether  it  said  anything 
to  you  depended  upon  whether  you  beheved  it,  whether 
you  had  really  caught  sight  of  this  as  the  purpose  of 
all  things — this  plan  of  God  to  bring  His  children  back 
to  Himself.  If  you  did  see  that,  then  the  gospel  of 
reconciliation  had  surely  very  much  to  say  to  you  in 
your  great  grief.  Of  your  friend — perhaps  your  child 
— who  had  gone  it  had  to  remind  you  that  it  certainly 
was  not  strange  if  God,  whose  one  wish  about  all  His 
children  was  that  they  should  come  to  Him  and  know 
Him,  had  taken  this,  who  to  you  seemed  the  most 
precious  of  all  children  of  God,  into  His  own  more 
immediate  presence,  to  teach  and  train  his  life  with  a 
directer  ministry  of  His  own.     Death  could  not  seem 


SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS.  107 

inexplicable  or  desperate  to  one  who  had  caught  sight 
of  a  design  of  life  which  issued  from  and  which  must 
return  into  the  spu-itual  world,  which  did  not  begin  and 
which  could  not  be  completed  here.  And  for  yourself, 
if  that  same  plan  included  you,  if  for  you  too  there  was 
one  supreme  wish  in  your  Father's  heart  that  you 
should  come  perfectly  to  Him,  then  it  was  not  strange 
— certainly  it  was  not  incredible — that  He  should  have 
tried  to  draw  you  by  taking  to  Himself  that  which  was 
like  your  other  life,  your  second  self ;  and  you  could 
not  have  asked  Him  to  spare  you  the  pain  if  it  was  by 
the  pain  only  that  He  could  take  hold  of  you.  As  well 
might  the  child  complain  of  the  tight,  painful  grasp 
with  which  his  father  seized  him  to  drag  him  out  of  the 
river.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  preach  any  mere  cheeri- 
ness  about  sorrow  or  about  death,  as  if  it  were  a  light 
and  easy  thing,  easy  to  understand  or  easy  to  meet.  My 
lips  refuse  to  speak,  and  your  hearts  will  not  receive, 
such  doctrine.  Death  is  tennble.  Its  mystery  grows 
deeper  and  deeper.  No  familiarity  with  it  makes  it 
anything  but  awfid.  But  the  gospel  of  reconciliation 
overleaps  it,  and  on  the  other  side  shows  the  soul  that 
has  passed  through  it  and  been  purified,  we  know  not 
how,  by  it,  received  into  the  Father's  house  toward 
which  it  has  so  long  been  strugghng.  It  cannot  ejr^yJain 
death — there  can  be  no  explanation  till  we  each  under- 
stand it  by  undergoing  it ;  but  it  can,  it  does,  overpass 
death  and  stretch  its  purposes  of  life  into  eternity. 

It  is  not  only  the  suffering  in  life  that  needs  to  be 
spoken  to  and  helped.  There  is  something  else,  I  think, 
that  is  almost  more  exhausting  than  our  suffering  in  its 
constant  wearing  pressure  upon  the  hearts  of  men.    It 


108  SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS. 

is  that  feeling  of  the  insignificance  of  life  that  often 
grows  so  hard  to  bear.  I  am  afraid  that  many  of  you 
know  it  only  too  well.  Not  merely  on  some  moody 
day,  but  have  you  not  felt  it  as  the  constant  temper  of 
long  stretches  of  your  life — the  wonder  whether  it 
meant  anything,  the  utter  loss  of  any  insight  into  what 
it  meant,  this  work  of  living  ?  That  is  what  rubs  deep 
into  our  strength  with  its  dull  and  heavy  friction.  It 
rises  up  like  a  self -begotten  mist  out  of  ourselves.  It 
is  reflected  and  shed  on  us  from  other  men  around  us. 
It  haunts  the  home  of  poverty,  and,  even  more  bitter 
and  disheartening,  it  sits  down  at  the  rich  man's  feast. 
Who  can  speak  to  and  dispel  this  specter  ?  Who  can 
tell  us  with  authority  that  life  has  a  meaning,  and  make 
us  see  it  and  rejoice  to  live  for  it  ?  Who  but  the  gospel 
of  reconciliation?  If  that  is  true,  if  all  these  heav- 
enly forces  are  at  work  upon  our  Hfe,  if  all  this  watch- 
ful interest  hovers  over  what  we  are  doing,  if  we  may 
really  go  on  and  be  the  children  of  God,  where  is  there 
any  insignificant  detail  ?  Wlio  can  help  f  eehng  purpose 
run  Uke  life-blood  through  the  half-di-ied  veins  of  his 
discom-agement  ?  How  life  lifts  itself  up  with  interest 
and  dignity  when  it  really  becomes  the  culture  of  God's 
redeemed  children  for  then*  Father's  house  ! 

But  there  is  something  else.  Deeper  than  suffering 
and  insignificance  lies  sin.  Ah,  that  is  at  the  root  of 
aU.  These  are  but  the  symptoms ;  this  is  the  disease. 
And  what  has  the  gospel  to  say  to  sin  ?  Ah,  fancy 
Him  who  was  the  gospel  meeting,  as  He  walked  in  old 
Jerusalem,  these  woes  and  hindrances  of  human  life 
which  we  have  spoken  of.  He  walks  along,  and  first 
He  meets  a  sufferer,  some  soul  wrung  with  pain  and 


SUNDAY  AFTER  CHRISTMAS.  109 

bereavement.  He  stops  and  lays  His  hand  upon  the 
wretched  head,  and  says,  "  Be  comforted :  thy  brother 
shall  rise  again,  I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life." 
Then  He  goes  on  and  meets  a  poor  man  (poor  or  rich) 
fretted  and  wearied  with  the  insignificance  of  life.  To 
him  He  says,  "  Arise ;  be  strong.  He  that  believeth  on 
Me,  the  works  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also."  But  then 
He  comes  to  another  who  is  a  sinner  bowed  down  with 
sin,  sorrowing  and  sighing  because  he  is  so  wicked. 
Ah,  how  the  Saviour's  face  lightens  anew !  This  is  the 
soul  He  wants.  He  came  to  seek  and  to  save  the  lost. 
He  was  called  Jesus,  because  He  should  save  His  people 
from  their  sins.  And  as  He  says  to  the  poor  soul,  "  Thy 
sins  are  forgiven  thee,"  you  are  sure  that  the  Saviour  is 
speaking  the  words  that  He  most  loves  to  speak,  and  that 
the  gospel  of  reconciUation  is  doing  its  deepest  work. 

Out  of  suffering,  out  of  insignificance,  out  of  sin,  we 
come,  by  the  love  of  God,  by  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus, 
by  the  ministry  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  into  the  full  life  of 
the  sons  of  God.  O  my  dear  brethren,  I  claim  you 
for  that  life.  If  you  will  read  your  own  hearts  you 
will  know  that  you  belong  to  God.  If  you  will  stand 
before  Christ  He  will  take  you  for  God's.  If  you  will 
open  your  heart  to  the  Spirit  He  will  bring  you  to  God. 
And  when  you  come  there  your  heart  will  know  the 
God  whom  it  belongs  to,  and  call  Him  Father. 

Both  here  and  hereafter  it  is  only  in  being  God's 
children  that  we  are  truly  men.  May  God,  who  sent 
His  Son  into  the  world,  send  forth  the  Spirit  of  His  Son 
into  aU  our  hearts,  that  we  may  know  and  love  our 
Father. 


VIII. 

ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

"Blessed  are  they  whose  iniquities  are  forgiven,  and  whose 
sins  are  covered." — EoM.  iv.  7. 

Another  Asli  Wednesday  opens  for  ns  to-day  an- 
other Lent.  If  we  have  really  swept  aside  our  ordinary 
occupations  and  thoughts  in  any  real  way,  it  is  that 
we  may  look  in  upon  our  own  lives  and  souls,  which 
our  ordinary  thoughts  and  occupations  hide  from  us 
at  other  times,  and  see  them  as  they  really  are.  The 
abandonment  of  any  thoughts  or  occupations  is  not 
something  that  is  good  in  itself,  unless  the  things 
which  we  give  up  are  intrinsically  bad,  and  then  we 
ought  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  them  at  any  time,  in 
Lent  or  out  of  it.  It  is  the  sight  of  ourselves  which 
our  simplified  life  in  these  weeks  will  give  us  that 
makes  them  valuable.  It  ought  to  be  as  when  the 
clouds  over  a  landscape  part,  and  one  who  has  been 
standing  above,  seeing  only  the  clouds  which  the  hot 
ground  had  flung  up  from  its  bosom,  sees  suddenly  the 
landscape  through  the  clouds — fields,  woods,  and  hills 
lying  quietly  down  below.  So  is  it  when  a  man  for  a 
few  moments  or  a  few  days  breaks  through  the  cloud 
of  crowded  businesses  that  hide  his  soul  from  his  own 
eyes  and  really  sees  himself. 

110 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  Ill 

And  when  a  man  sees  himself  he  always  sees  sin. 
That  is  what  gives  Lent  its  sad  and  penitent  color. 
Think  what  Lent,  the  days  of  self -sight,  would  be  if  it 
were  not  so.  If  men,  pausing  from  their  busy  life  and 
looking  in  upon  the  self  that  lived  the  life,  foimd  noth- 
ing there  but  perfect  obedience  and  unbroken  goodness, 
then  with  what  a  humble  but  perfect  joy  these  weeks 
would  be  filled;  and  when  they  were  over,  how  men 
would  take  up  their  active  work  again,  with  only  a  new 
thankfulness  to  the  God  who  had  kept  them  so  pure, 
and  with  new  trust  that  He  would  still  preserve  them ! 
But  now  how  different  it  is !  He  who  would  estimate 
himself  must  estimate  his  sin.  Self-knowledge  means 
humihation.  Not  that  there  is  only  sin  in  us.  To 
think  that,  to  say  that,  of  ourselves  would  be  as  false  as 
if  we  said  there  was  no  sin  at  all.  Men  try  to  say  that 
of  themselves,  and  it  makes  all  their  effort  to  under- 
stand themselves  unreal.  No,  there  is  much  in  us 
besides  our  sin  which  we  must  know  in  order  that  we 
may  know  ourselves.  But  there  is  sin,  sin  everywhere. 
It  runs  through  every  part  of  us — through  mind  and 
soul  and  body.  We  must  understand  it  before  we  can 
understand  ourselves,  as  we  must  understand  salt  before 
we  can  understand  the  sea ;  as  we  must  know  what  fire 
is  before  we  can  comprehend  the  sun.  And  so  Lent 
becomes  the  season  of  sadness  and  repentance,  with  the 
hope  that  is  always  born  of  thoroughness  and  earnest- 
ness burning  underneath  and  keeping  it  from  gloomy 
wretchedness. 

On  this  first  day  of  Lent,  then,  I  must  speak  of  shi. 
And  just  as  soon  as  the  word  passes  my  lips  I  feel  what 
a  vague  sound  it  has  acquired.     It  has  grown  to  be  a 


112  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

word  of  sermons,  sometimes  a  word  of  prayers,  but  it 
is  not  a  word  of  men's  most  real  thoughts  very  often. 
They  think  of  this  sin  and  of  that  sin ;  but  of  sin  itself, 
as  a  persistent  presence,  as  an  element  in  life,  but  few 
men  think.  Shall  we  say  that  the  trouble  is  in  the 
word,  and  try  to  put  some  other  word  into  its  place  ? 
Oh  no,  the  trouble  is  in  the  thing  itself ;  it  is  the  very 
thought  of  being  wrong  that  is  so  vague  to  men.  You 
never  can  make  a  half-apprehended  idea  clear  by  giv- 
ing it  a  new  word  to  call  itself  by.  The  new  word, 
though  it  may  have  been  so  sharp-lined  and  concrete 
that  you  could  take  hold  of  it  before,  grows  dim  and 
misty  the  moment  that  you  fasten  it  to  an  idea  which 
men  cannot  or  will  not  distinctly  comprehend.  It  is 
not  the  name  sin.  It  is  the  thing  sin  that  is  vague  to 
us.  I  look  about  this  morning  upon  earnest  faces.  You 
have  not  come  to  church — I  will  be  siu*e  that  you  have 
not  come  to  church  to-day  at  least — out  of  any  curious 
idleness.  Or  if  by  chance  any  of  you  have  so  come, 
with  those  of  you,  at  least,  I  cannot  busy  myself.  God 
grant  that  the  most  trivial  and  unearnest  of  them  may 
gather  something  out  of  the  influences  of  the  day !  But 
my  business  on  Ash  Wednesday  morning  is  with  the 
earnest  people — with  you,  dear  friends,  who  really  want 
to  know  yourselves.  To  know  yourselves  you  must 
know  sin ;  and  so  to  take  sin  out  of  its  vagueness  and 
make  it  real,  to  pluck  it  out  of  abstractness  and  show 
how  we  can  find  it  in  our  own  history  and  hearts,  will 
be  my  task  this  morning. 

I  have  thought  how  I  might  do  this  best,  and  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  if  we  could  perfectly  understand  any 
one  sin  that  ever  was  committed — trace  it  completely 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  113 

from  its  beginning  to  its  end — we  could  hardly  help 
seeing  what  sin  is.  All  sins  are  sinful.  AH  sinfulness 
is  one  at  heart.  Let  me  really,  deeply  know  how  the 
mean,  base,  cruel  thing  which  Simon  Peter  did  when 
he  denied  Jesus  in  the  hour  of  His  bitter  distress  came 
to  be  done,  and  I  shall  know  how  Cain  came  to  murder 
Abel,  and  how  I  came  myself  yesterday  to  do  a  deed 
that  to-day  fills  me  with  shame.  That  is  the  sin  which 
I  have  chosen  for  our  study.  We  shall  meet  it  fully, 
face  to  face,  when  the  last  week  of  Lent  brings  us  to 
the  tiial  of  the  Lord ;  but  to-day  let  us  quietly  look  at 
it  from  the  beginning  to  the  end — see  where  it  came 
from,  how  it  grew  to  ripeness,  and  by  what  death  it 
died.     The  history  of  a  sin — this  is  our  subject. 

I  miist  take  it  for  gi'anted  that  3^ou  aU  know  in  gen- 
eral the  story  of  St.  Peter  and  his  denial  of  the  Lord. 
Assuming  that,  I  shall  have  to  speak  about  four  points 
in  the  man's  history  which  mark  respectively  the  be- 
ginning of  his  chance  to  do  his  sin,  the  warning  of  his 
danger,  the  actual  doing  of  it,  and  the  removal  of  it  by 
forgiveness.  I  can  dwell  but  a  few  moments  upon 
each. 

1.  The  fii'st  scene  takes  us  away  back  to  the  begin- 
ning of  Christ's  public  work.  It  was  the  bright,  fresh 
morning  of  the  Gospel  story.  It  was  morning,  too, 
upon  the  shining  Lake  of  Gennesaret.  The  hills  were 
bright  around  the  lake ;  the  lake  within  the  hills  was 
bright  and  leaping  in  the  sunshine.  Everything  was 
fuU  of  life  and  youth.  "  And  Jesus,  walking  by  the 
Sea  of  Galilee,  saw  two  brethren,  Simon  called  Peter, 
and  Andrew  his  brother,  casting  a  net  into  the  sea :  for 
they  were  fishers.   And  He  saitli  unto  them,  FoUow  Me, 


114  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men.  And  they  straight- 
way left  their  nets,  and  followed  Him."  How  ever  new 
the  sweet  old  story  sounds !  Simon  called  Peter  left 
his  net  and  followed  Jesus.  He  went  out  of  the  old  life 
into  the  untried  new  life,  following  this  Master.  He 
went  out  to  a  friendsliip  and  a  work  that  were  to  fill 
Ms  days  with  delight  and  inspii'ation.  He  went  to 
new  thoughts,  new  hopes,  new  duties.  But  did  he  go 
to  nothing  else!  As  he  turns  and  follows  Jesus  does 
he  not  go  burdened  with  new  dangers  which  he  did  not 
have  before  ?  The  chance  to  be  loyal  to  his  new  Master 
involves  the  chance  to  be  disloyal  to  Him.  The  privi- 
lege of  faithfulness  carries  with  it  the  peril  of  unfaith- 
fulness. If  from  that  moment  of  his  choice  it  is  possi- 
ble for  him.  to  acknowledge  Christ,  is  it  not  possible 
also  to  deny  Him  ?  If  the  glory  of  the  transfiguration 
mountain  begins  to  glow  before  him,  does  not  the 
tragedy  of  Pilate's  judgment-hall  also  loom  in  sight? 
These  two  together,  both  half  realized  but  both  real, 
are  in  the  face  of  Peter,  making  him  sober  and  quiet  in 
all  his  enthusiastic  joy  as  with  his  brother  he  leaves  his 
nets  and  goes  where  the  wonderful  Stranger  leads. 

And  so  it  is  with  every  call,  with  every  privilege. 
To  the  sick  man  there  comes  back  health.  As  he  leaps 
from  his  bed  and  goes  out  into  life  with  other  men,  does 
there  not  come  to  him  a  power  of  active  wickedness  as 
well  as  of  active  goodness  that  was  not  his  when  he  lay 
languid  in  his  weakness  or  tossing  in  his  pain  ?  To  the 
poor  man  wealth  is  given.  Is  it  not  a  new  candidate 
for  meanness  as  well  as  a  new  candidate  for  charity, 
who  takes  the  unfamiliar  bags  of  money  into  his 
trembling  hands  ?    To  the  childless  man  God  sends  a 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  115 

child.  All  the  sins  of  fatherhood  as  well  as  all  its  noble 
vii'tues  become  possible  with  the  fii'st  taking  of  that 
child  into  his  arms.  To  the  heathen  man  Christ  is 
preached,  and  as  he  hears  and  believes,  out  of  the  dark- 
ness that  has  been  crowded  about  his  lot  come  flocking 
dangers  of  impiety  and  faithlessness  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der, hand  in  hand,  with  all  the  glorious  hopes  of  his 
new  life.  There  is  where  sin  is  born ;  there  is  the  first 
opening  of  the  chance  of  sin.  No  wonder  that  to  any 
serious  man  privilege  becomes  a  solemn  thing.  No 
wonder  that  the  answer  to  a  call  of  God  is  spoken  out 
of  hps  that  tremble  with  fear  while  they  bui-n  with 
love.  No  wonder  that  a  man  sits  in  his  richened  life, 
hardly  knowing  whether  he  is  glad  or  sorry,  awed  and 
oppressed  with  the  richness  for  which  he  has  prayed, 
and  which  has  been  given  to  him  in  answer  to  his 
prayer. 

Does  not  such  a  truth  as  this,  when  it  is  understood 
and  deeply  felt,  make  men  reject  the  privileges  which 
bring  such  dangers  with  them  ?  Does  it  not  make  all 
conscientious  and  sin-fearing  men  seek  a  meager  and 
restricted  life,  giving  up  much  chance  of  goodness  be- 
cause of  the  chance  of  being  bad  that  must  come  with 
it  ?  Happily  it  is  not  so.  It  seems,  indeed,  as  if  there 
were  two  kinds  of  fear,  one  ignoble  and  paralyzing, 
the  other  noble  and  stimulating ;  and  as  if  this  fear  of 
privilege  were  always  trying,  at  least,  to  be  of  the  noble 
sort.  Sometimes  it  fails,  and  the  men  who  see  what 
danger  privilege  brings  shrink  from  it  altogether,  and 
try  to  live  the  smallest  life  they  can.  But  commonly 
the  scale  of  men's  construction  is  loftier  than  that. 
Commonly  the  man  who  is  man  enough  to  see  this 


116  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

truth  is  man  enough  to  meet  it.  It  fills  him  with  a 
soberness  which  is  energy  and  not  despair.  And  be- 
sides, men  see  that  it  is  a  danger  which  they  cannot 
shu-k.  To  avoid  privilege  in  order  to  escape  the  chance 
of  sin  which  it  brings  with  it  is  essentially  to  commit 
the  very  sin  of  which  we  are  afraid.  For  Peter  to  re- 
fuse to  follow  Jesus  because  he  sees  the  denial  looming 
in  the  distance  is  really  only  to  anticipate  his  sin  and 
to  deny  his  Master  now. 

And  yet  another  truth  comes  in  here.  We  talk  about 
the  dangerous  privileges  that  may  be  given  men  in  life. 
But  really  it  is  life  itself  which  is  the  dangerous  privi- 
lege. The  chance  to  sin  is  wrapped  up  in  the  very  fact 
that  we  are  men.  We  could  not  have  the  lofty  hopes 
of  heaven  without  having,  too,  the  haunting  fear  of  hell. 
Here  is  the  only  real  light  we  get  upon  the  problem  of 
evil.  It  is  not  conceivable  that  man  should  have  the 
chance  of  being  good  without  the  other  chance  of  being 
bad.  But  then  it  foUows  that  no  man  can  escape  from 
privilege  tni  he  escapes  from  life.  You  may  disown 
this  or  that  special  call  that  comes  to  you,  and  so  seem 
to  have  escaped  the  danger  of  the  special  sins  that 
were  awaiting  you  down  these  special  paths ;  but  still 
your  human  life  remains.  Still  while  you  live  you 
must  be  good  or  bad.  And  if  you  do  the  basest, 
meanest  act  that  man  is  capable  of,  and  by  a  cowardly 
suicide  try  to  escape  from  life,  still  you  have  only  con- 
densed your  treason  to  your  privileges  into  one  miser- 
able deed.  And  who  can  say  upon  what  strange  yet 
familiar  shore  of  the  other  world  the  disappointed  sui- 
cide may  find,  to  his  dismay,  that  he  has  not  escaped ; 
may  be  appalled  to  meet  his  old  humanity,  which  death 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  117 

could  not  kill,  and  have  to  take  up  for  eternity  the 
struggle  from  which  no  man  can  escape  so  long  as  he 
is  man  ? 

Here,  then,  is  where  our  sins  are  born — deep  in  the 
bosom  of  our  chances.  How  wonderful  is  the  human 
nature  which,  in  a  world  all  filled  with  this  truth,  stni, 
with  its  moral  buoyancy,  takes  up  its  privileges  with 
undying  hope !  Wonderful  is  that  ineradicable  hero- 
ism of  humanity  which  makes  danger  a  necessary  ele- 
ment of  joy.  The  wisest  men  go  out  to  life,  not  with 
depression,  but  with  serious  joy,  bearing  within  them 
their  consciousness  of  privilege,  made  critical,  made 
pathetic,  made  even  glorious,  by  their  possibUity  of 
wickedness. 

2.  I  pass  on  to  the  next  stage  in  the  history  of  the 
sia  of  Peter.  The  scene  is  altered,  yet  the  same ;  stUl 
the  Lake  of  Gennesaret,  where  the  disciple  answered  to 
the  Master's  call.  Only  now,  not  the  bright  morning 
and  the  sohd  shore,  but  the  dark  night  and  the  howling 
tempest  out  on  the  middle  of  the  lake;  the  shore  out 
of  sight,  and  through  the  darkness  the  figure  of  Jesus 
walking  on  the  water  toward  the  frightened  boat. 
Then  Peter,  when  he  knows  that  it  is  Jesus,  starts  to 
go  to  Him  across  the  water.  "  But  when  he  saw  the 
wind  boisterous,  he  was  afraid ;  and  beginning  to  sink, 
he  cried,  saying,  Lord,  save  me."  Think  of  the  man 
the  moment  afterward,  when  Jesus  has  taken  him  by 
the  hand  and  held  him  up,  and  gently  rebuked  him  for 
his  faithlessness,  and  brought  him  into  the  boat  again, 
and  the  wind  has  ceased  and  all  is  calm.  See  him  sit- 
ting in  silence  and  thoughtfulness.  What  has  come  to 
him?    He  has  had  warning  of  Ms  weaJcness.    He  has 


118  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

seen  that  there  are  possible  moments  when  his  faith  in 
his  Master  may  give  way.  The  chance  of  sin,  which, 
as  we  saw,  was  involved  in  the  very  following  of  Jesus, 
has  stood  up  vividly  before  him,  and  is  the  danger  of  sin. 
However  afterward,  in  eager  self-assertion,  he  may  say, 
"  Though  all  men  shaU  be  offended  because  of  Thee, 
yet  will  I  never  be  offended,"  he  never  can  say  it  with 
such  perfect  certainty  as  he  could  yesterday,  or  as  he 
could  the  moment  when  he  stepped  down  from  the 
ship's  side  upon  the  water.  That  is  what  has  come 
over  him  and  made  him  thoughtful.  Henceforth  he 
never  can  be  the  perfectly  buoyant  Peter  that  he  has 
been  hitherto.  He  must  always  think  differently  of 
himself.  He  must  always  look  on  his  Master's  face 
with  other  eyes.  He  has  caught  sight  of  the  possibility 
of  denying  Him.  He  has  had  warning  of  his  coming 
sin. 

Such  warnings  come  in  the  lives  of  aU  of  us  who 
have  any  thoughtfulness.  Just  as  before  a  great  in- 
vention opens  its  full  wonder  on  the  world  the  brain 
of  the  inventor  is  haunted  with  visions  of  the  coming 
moment  in  which  the  pei-plexed  conditions  shall  all 
faU  into  their  places  and  the  destined  miracle  be  born ; 
just  as  before  some  great  act  of  self-sacrifice  startles 
and  delights  the  eyes  of  men  the  soul  that  is  to  do  it 
feels  in  itself  the  movement  of  capacities  for  self -sur- 
render which  it  cannot  really  believe  that  it  possesses, 
so  the  warning  of  the  sin  that  is  to  tear  one's  life  asun- 
der, the  first  dim  thought  that  possibly  the  dreadful 
thing  is  possible,  comes  long  before  the  sin  is  done.  No 
sin  is  sudden.  The  warning  may  be  only  half  recog- 
nized, but  when  the  sin  of  our  life  comes,  who  of  us 


ASH  WEDNESDAY,  119 

has  not  felt,  strangely  mingled  with  its  strangeness,  a 
certain  dreadful  familiarity,  such  as  one  might  feel 
when  a  man  whom  he  had  never  seen,  but  of  whom  he 
dreamed  last  night,  and  whose  face  he  remembered 
from  the  dream,  stepped  in  the  living  flesh  across  his 
threshold?  Let  me  try  to  point  out  some  few  of  the 
ways  in  which  such  warnings  come  to  us;  though, 
indeed,  this  stage  of  a  sin's  history  is  so  occult  and 
subtle  that  no  enumeration  of  special  forms  that  it  may 
take  can  do  more  than  suggest  its  character.  Some- 
times a  man  undertakes  a  task  which  he  thinks  is  pure 
supererogation.  He  is  not  bound  to  do  it.  He  might 
leave  it  undone  and  yet  do  all  his  duty.  He  thinks  that 
his  real  life  is  not  staked  upon  this  venture.  Out  of 
mere  excess  of  moral  vitality  he  undertakes  some  moral 
feat,  some  piece  of  quixotic  chai-ity,  some  exercise  of 
honesty  beyond  the  strictest  standards  or  most  scrupu- 
lous scruples  of  the  best  men.  That  really  was  what 
Peter  did  when  he  offered  the  imdemauded  trust  in 
Jesus  of  the  walk  upon  the  water.  The  man  fails  in 
his  self-appointed  task.  The  extra  strain  upon  his 
moral  power  is  too  great  for  him.  He  goes  back  to  his 
assigned  duty,  his  expected  work.  But  he  has  touched 
the  point  of  weakness.  His  strength  no  longer  seems 
to  him  infinite,  and  thenceforth  through  his  safest  doing 
of  his  daily  tasks  must  run  the  knowledge  that  there  is 
a  point  where  conscience  will  be  too  weak  and  resolu- 
tion will  break  down.  The  athlete  who  has  recklessly 
tried  to  lift  his  five  hundred  pounds  and  failed  has 
caught  sight  of  the  possible  day  when  he  shall  fail  to 
lift  the  two  hundred  which  is  so  easy  to  him  now. 
Or  again,  a  man  finds  himself  doing  just  the  oppo- 


120  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

site  of  this.  He  catches  himself  questioning  duty  to 
see  how  little  he  can  get  along  with  and  yet  be  dutiful. 
The  man  in  business,  spurning  the  very  thought  of 
cheating,  as  ready  as  he  ever  was  to  strike  down  any 
man  who  dared  approach  him  with  temptation,  finds 
himself  some  day  questioning  duty  and  trying  to  make 
it  say  that  it  is  not  duty,  or  seeing  how  close  he  can 
run  under  the  lee  of  a  doubtful  transaction  and  yet  sail 
out  safe.  He  has  not  sinned,  but  if  he  is  a  sensitive 
and  thoughtful  man  he  sees,  as  he  opens  his  eyes  to 
what  he  is  doing,  how  he  might  sin.  He  shudders  as  a 
man  might  who,  walking  in  his  sleep,  woke  up  and  found 
that  what  he  thought  was  music  is  the  roaring  in  his 
ears  of  the  chasm  on  whose  brink  he  stands.  His  com- 
ing sin  has  given  him  its  warning. 

Or  yet  again,  a  man  here  by  my  side  does  a  sin 
whose  very  form  my  imagination  has  never  pictured  to 
itself.  I  expect  to  find  myseK  all  full  of  horror,  but  to 
my  surprise  a  strange  sort  of  sympathy  takes  possession 
of  me  instead.  I  expect  to  be  filled  with  loathing  for 
the  wicked  man,  but  instead  of  that  I  find  myself  for- 
getting him  altogether,  and  deep  unfamiliar  questions 
about  myself  are  stirring  in  my  soul.  Some  bolt  in  the 
mysterious  chambers  of  my  self-consciousness  has  been 
pushed  back.  Not  merely,  that  man  is  what  I  might 
have  been;  that  man  is  what  I  may  he.  The  sin  of 
which  I  stand  in  danger  has  given  me  its  warning. 

Or  once  more,  just  the  opposite  of  this  may  hap- 
pen. A  pure,  bright  spirit  who  has  been  by  my  side 
suddenly  leaves  me.  Some  sudden  call,  to  which  its 
bright  ambition  instantly  responds,  lifts  it  out  of  the 
round  of  commonplace  faithfulness,  and  it  is  doing 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  121 

some  heroic,  some  angelic  thing.  I  instinctively  try  to 
foUow  it.  It  is  as  if  a  bird  and  a  beast  that  had  been 
shut  up  forty  days  together  in  the  ark,  and  had  grown 
to  be  friends  in  the  sympathy  of  that  restricted  life, 
were  let  loose  together  upon  Ararat,  and  as  the  bird 
soared  to  the  open  sky  that  it  was  made  for,  the  poor 
beast  felt  for  the  first  time  what  a  heavy  and  clumsy 
beast  it  was.  So  the  sight  of  the  best  things  that  the 
best  men  do,  if  it  stirs  me  at  all,  shows  me  how  near 
the  limit  of  my  power  I  am  Hving,  how  little  margin  I 
have,  and  the  day  when  my  strength  shall  fail  even 
within  its  limits ;  the  warning  of  my  coming  sin  grows 
up  before  me. 

These  and  a  multitude  of  others  like  them  are  the 
times  when  the  unborn  sin  stu's  in  the  womb  of  the 
chance  where  it  is  hidden.  It  is  like  the  gathering  of 
a  coming  bankruptcy.  The  merchant  will  not  own  it 
even  to  himself,  but  when  the  day  of  his  suspension 
^omes  it  is  not  sudden.  It  is  like  the  approach  of 
death.  The  man  assures  himself,  in  spite  of  every 
symptom,  that  he  is  a  weU  man  stiU ;  but  when  you 
tell  him  he  must  die  he  is  not  surprised.  You  never 
did  a  sin  that  did  not  give  its  warning  so  to  you  before 
you  did  it.  Perhaps  you  did  not  hear,  but  it  was  not 
that  the  warning  bell  did  not  ring.  Perhaps  you  called 
that  first  sign  of  weakness  a  mere  accident,  and  tried 
to  believe  that  it  meant  nothing ;  but  if  you  gave  your 
thought  to  it  you  knew  it  was  not  so.  You  knew  it 
was  the  house's  feeble  timbers  creaking  before  their 
fall.  There  are  such  warnings  of  coming  sins  that 
every  one  of  us  here  has  received — sins  yet  undone ; 
sins  which,  it  may  be,  are  to  make  our  whole  life  dark 


122  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

some  day,  whose  threatening  we  can  read,  if  we  are 
only  wise  enough,  in  something  that  has  come  to  us 
ah-eady.  Once  you  have  drawn  back  from  duty  because 
it  looked  hard.  It  was  only  for  a  moment.  The  next 
instant  you  were  on  your  feet  again,  and  did  the  duty 
bravely ;  but  it  gave  you  a  glimpse  of  the  dreadful  days 
of  self-indulgent  idleness  and  uselessness  and  moral 
degeneration  that  might  come.  Once  you  have  trem- 
bled under  some  very  zephyr  of  an  evil  passion.  It 
was  the  first  warning  of  the  tempest  of  lust  which  may 
come  howling  about  your  purity  some  day.  Once  you 
coveted  what  was  not  yours,  trembled  just  for  a  mo- 
ment on  that  high  ground  of  calm  content  and  happy 
honesty  on  which  you  stand.  That  moment  you  got  a 
sight  into  the  dark  depths  of  a  thief s  life.  Life  is  full 
of  such  warnings.  No  man  grows  to  be  more  than  a 
mere  boy  without  learning  on  what  side  of  his  moral 
nature  he  will  fall  if  he  faUs  at  all.  Every  one  of  us 
knows,  who  is  in  the  least  thoughtful,  what  sort  of 
villain  he  would  be  if  he  grew  villainous.  Thank  God, 
these  warnings  may  save  us  from  the  things  they  warn 
us  of.  These  blessed  bells  that  ring  out  in  the  dark- 
ness may  turn  us  resolutely  off  from  the  cruel  surf  that 
roars  behind  them.  Peter  may  be  all  the  more  faitlif ul 
when  the  great  night  of  his  Master's  trial  and  his  own 
shaU  come,  because  his  faith  once  failed  him  on  the 
lake.  Only,  such  a  strange,  unreasonable  mystery  is 
this  human  nature,  the  bell  that  warns  one  man  from 
his  ruin  may  be  the  very  fascination  that  drags  another 
to  his  fate.  There  is  a  mysterious  reversal  of  our  whole 
moral  machinery  which  sometimes  takes  place,  by  which 
the  more  we  are  warned  of  the  danger  of  a  sin,  and  of 


ASH   WEDNESDAY.  123 

the  misery  that  it  will  bring,  the  more  we  hurry  on  to 
complete  it  and  see  it  out  to  its  very  worst.  Oh,  how 
our  poor  souls  need  to  pray  continually,  "  O  Lord,  not 
only  send  Thy  warnings  and  give  us  ears  to  hear  them, 
but  give  us  hearts  to  know  how  dreadful  is  the  sin  they 
prophesy  "  !  Not  merely  intelligence — that  never  saved 
a  man  alone  ;  but  a  changed  heart,  which,  like  the  heart 
of  God,  shall  di-ead  and  hate  a  coming  sin. 

3,  But  we  must  hasten  on.  And  the  next  step  brings 
us  to  what  these  fii'st  two  stages  have  been  foretelling. 
Again  the  scene  is  changed.  But  Peter  and  Jesus  are 
still  there,  the  sinner  and  his  Lord ;  as  they  have  been  in 
both  the  other  scenes,  so  they  are  here.  It  is  the  high 
priest's  palace.  And  as  Peter  stood  there,  a  man  "  con- 
fidently affirmed,  saying,  Of  a  truth  this  fellow  also  was 
with  Him ;  for  he  is  a  Galilean.  And  Peter  said,  Man,  I 
know  not  what  thou  sayest.  .  .  .  And  the  Lord  turned, 
and  looked  upon  Peter.  .  .  .  And  Peter  went  out,  and 
wept  bitterly."  The  deed  is  done  !  the  sin  is  committed ! 
How  quick  it  was !  how  simple  !  Away  back  on  that 
sweet  morning  by  the  lakeside  it  became  possible.  Here 
in  the  grim  hall  of  the  high  priest  the  thing  is  done.  How 
quick  !  how  simple  !  The  elements  have  met,  and  see  ! 
the  flame  is  burning.  I  doubt  not  the  first  feeling  that 
a  man  has  who  has  done  a  flagrant  sin  must  be  won- 
der at  its  wonderful  simplicity.  Is  it  possible  that  that 
little  blow  has  killed  the  man  ?  Is  it  possible  that  be- 
tween ten  o'clock  and  two  minutes  past  ten  I  have  be- 
come a  thief  ?  The  Lord  turns  and  looks  upon  Peter, 
and  he  knows  that  it  is  true.  The  look  recalls  the  past, 
and  all  the  preparation  of  the  sin  which  is  back  there 
gathers  up  around  the  present  to  assure  him  that  it  is 


124  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

really  done.  The  voice  of  the  Lord  had  called  him 
across  the  waters  of  the  lake.  The  hand  of  the  Lord 
had  caught  him  when  he  was  just  going  to  sink.  Now 
the  eye  of  the  Lord  sends  all  that  past  into  his  soul 
and  bears  him  witness  with  its  piercing  sorrow  that  the 
dreadful  development  is  finished,  and  the  sin  that  has 
been  seeking  birth  so  long  is  born  at  last. 

These  two  influences,  I  think,  were  in  the  look  that 
Jesus  cast  on  Peter.  It  recalled  the  past,  so  that  the 
man  became  aware  how  far  back  the  roots  of  this  sin 
ran ;  and  it  was  full  of  present  pain,  so  that  he  knew 
what  a  terrible  critical  thing  it  was  that  he  had  just 
done.  These  two  things  eveiy  sinner  needs  to  know 
about  the  sin  he  has  committed.  All  its  long  prepara- 
tion must  give  it  solemnity.  It  must  seem  to  be  not 
the  sudden  birth  of  one  bad  moment,  and  yet  the  one 
bad  moment  must  lose  none  of  its  conscious  badness, 
its  manifest  responsibility,  by  the  extension  of  the  sin's 
history  back  into  the  past.  Its  long  maturing  must 
pour  its  seriousness  into  the  final  moment  when  the 
man  at  last  chose  whether  he  would  crown  the  process 
with  the  conclusive  word  or  fatal  deed.  Indeed,  all  life 
is  made  up  of  these  two  elements — long,  silent  growths 
and  quick,  decisive  actions.  The  sacredness,  the  awful- 
ness  of  life  hes  in  the  two  together.  The  soberness  of 
life  is  kept  by  the  fact  that  nothing  in  the  world  is 
sudden.  The  intensity  of  life  is  kept  by  the  fact  that 
everything  is  sudden.  In  these  two  elements  we  have 
the  fuU  consciousness  of  the  man  who  has  just  done  a 
sin  and  sits  in  his  place  and  thinks  of  it.  At  once  his 
past  life  has  reached  out  all  its  myriad  arms,  and  seems 
to  be  holding  him  helpless,  and  out  from  the  very 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  125 

ground  at  his  feet  a  terrible  power  has  sprung  forth 
and  seized  him.  His  whole  habitual  character  and  his 
single  present  will — both  of  them  are  wrong.  He  asks 
what  he  is  to  do,  and  he  sees  that  it  is  not  enough  to 
repent  of  this  one  moment,  as  one  might  pluck  a  single 
unaccountable  weed  out  of  his  garden  and  go  his  way- 
rejoicing  that  now  his  garden  is  all  pure.  He  must  re- 
pent of  all  the  past.  He  must  renew  the  very  soil.  He 
must  struggle  not  merely  with  the  circumstances  that 
made  this  special  sin,  but  with  his  whole  sinful  self. 
And  yet  here  is  this  one  special  immediate  sin  standing 
black  before  his  eyes,  crying  out  hoarsely  in  his  ears. 
Repentance  is  so  vast,  so  thorough,  as  one  sees  it  then. 
It  is  the  casting  of  this  one  rebellious  will  upon  the 
altar.  It  is  the  casting  of  the  rebellious  heart  upon  the 
altar,  too.  All  this  grows  clear  to  the  poor  sinner  as 
he  sits  with  the  fresh  misery  of  his  sin  upon  him,  or  as 
he  turns  and  goes  out  from  the  high  priest's  hall.  In 
one  quick  moment  everything  is  altered.  The  great 
dark  walls  are  there,  the  group  about  the  fire,  the  ser- 
vants passing  to  and  fro,  the  inner  chamber  with  the 
eager  accusers  and  their  prisoner  and  the  high  priest 
— all  that  is  there  as  it  was  a  minute  back ;  but  every- 
thing is  altered.  The  poor  man's  heart  is  broken.  His 
past  is  all  powerless.  The  present  moment  is  trembling 
on  the  border  of  despair,  for  he  has  done  his  sin. 

4.  Only  one  more  scene  remains  to  complete  the  his- 
tory, and  we  are  taken  back  again  from  the  great  city 
to  the  quiet  lake  to  find  it.  Jesus  has  been  crucified, 
dead,  and  buried,  and  He  has  risen  from  the  dead,  and 
now  once  more  He  stands  on  the  same  bank  of  the  lake 
where  He  stood  three  years  ago.     Peter  again,  just  as 


126  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

on  that  never-forgotten  morning,  is  off  on  the  water 
in  his  boat.  Jesus  calls  to  him  again  and  teUs  him 
where  the  fish  are  to  be  caught.  Peter  is  dazed  and 
bewildered ;  but  the  moment  that  John,  with  his  quicker 
insight,  tells  him  that  the  stranger  is  then-  Lord  he  is 
in  the  water,  and  the  next  instant  he  is  at  the  feet  of 
Jesus,  and  Jesus  by  and  by  is  telling  him,  in  words  in 
wliich,  if  there  is  any  reproach,  it  makes  the  welcome 
only  more  sweet  and  gracious,  of  the  work  he  is  to  do 
for  Him.  Look  at  them  there  and  say  where  is  the  sin 
that  we  have  seen  grow  up  between  them,  and  that 
came  to  its  completion  on  that  dreadful  night  in  the 
high  priest's  palace.  You  say,  "  It  is  forgiven  !  "  But 
was  there  ever  set  forth  the  simplicity,  the  marvelous 
simplicity,  of  forgiveness  as  it  was  set  forth  there? 
Where  are  the  hard  conditions  with  which  men  and 
churches  have  surrounded  it?  There  is  no  sign  of  pen- 
ance ;  nay,  there  is  not  even  confession.  Peter  does 
not  even  say,  "  I  have  sinned."  He  does  not  even  de- 
clare his  resolution,  "  I  will  sin  no  more."  There  he  is, 
simply  able  to  look  up  in  the  face  of  Jesus  and  say, 
"  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee,"  and  waiting  for  the 
Lord  to  tell  him  what  his  work  shall  be.  I  think  there 
is  something  nobly  beautiful  in  Petei''s  perfect  confi- 
dence in  Jesus.  He  knew  Him  so  well.  He  knew  that 
Jesus  wanted  that  dreadful  sin  out  of  the  way  as  much 
as  he  did.  He  knew  that  Jesus  would  not  keep  the  sin 
there  one  moment  after  it  might  be  forgiven,  waiting 
for  any  kind  of  expiation  or  atonement.  And  so  the 
moment  that  he  had  repented  he  knew  that  Jesus  had 
forgiven,  and  he  came,  not  with  passionate  prayers,  as 
if  he  had  to  wring  forgiveness  from  reluctant  hands, 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  127 

but  with  the  overflowing  joy  of  gratitude,  and  with  a 
heart  leaping  "wdth  desire  to  manifest  its  love. 

Ah,  my  friends,  there  is  the  true  end  of  a  sin.  The 
ti*ue  sign  of  forgiveness  is  not  some  mysterious  signal 
waved  from  the  sky ;  not  some  obscure  emotion  hunted 
out  in  your  heart;  not  some  stray  text  culled  out  of 
your  Bible ;  certainly  not  some  word  of  mortal  priest 
telling  you  that  your  satisfaction  is  complete.  The 
soul  fuU  of  responsive  love  to  Christ,  and  ready,  long- 
ing, hungry  to  serve  Him,  is  its  own  sign  of  forgiveness. 
Must  there  not  be  sorrow  for  sin?  Can  you  picture 
this  loving,  waiting  soul  rejoicing  in  the  memory  of  its 
wickedness,  gloating  upon  its  old  unholy  joy?  Must 
there  not  be  resolution  of  amendment?  Surely  there 
must ;  but  do  you  want  it  in  cold,  hard  words,  or  leap- 
ing in  passionate  desire  of  a  new  life  from  the  eager 
eyes  ?  Surely  it  is  not  sorrow  for  sin,  for  the  sake  of 
the  sorrowfulness,  that  Jesus  ever  wants.  He  is  no  such 
cruel  inquisitor  as  that.  He  wants  sorrow  for  sin  only 
that  it  may  bring  escape  from  sin ;  and  when  the  sor- 
row for  sin  which  wept  in  the  street  outside  the  high 
priest's  palace  turns  its  other  side  and  is  joy  in  renewed 
devotion  such  as  burst  out  confidingty  by  the  lakeside, 
I  am  sure  no  Clirist  that  we  believe  in  can  do  anything 
but  welcome  it.  I  think  that  with  all  we  know  of  the 
divine  heart  of  Jesus  He  would  far  rather  see  a  soul 
trust  Him  too  much,  if  that  is  possible,  than  trust  Him 
too  Uttle,  which  we  know  is  possible  enough.  When  a 
man  who  has  sinned,  and  who,  like  Simon  Peter,  has 
not  a  shadow  or  a  ghost  of  an  excuse  to  offer  for  his 
sin,  has  so  known  Christ  that  he  never  thinks  of  Him 
as  one  to  be  propitiated,  never  doubts  for  an  instant 


128  ASH  WEDNESDAY. 

that  if  he  is  forgivable  he  is  forgiven,  and  so  lets  his 
hatred  of  his  old  sin  break  out  in  an  utterance  of  his 
love  for  the  Holy  One,  and  lets  his  sorrow  for  his  trea- 
son only  show  itself  in  his  desire  for  loyal  work,  then 
that  poor  sinner's  sin  is  dead  and  gone.  When  it  went 
he  may  not  be  able  to  say.  But  here  is  the  pure,  clear 
air  between  him  and  his  Lord.  The  sin  is  not  in  that. 
It  must  be  dead  and  gone. 

And  yet  that  is  not  wholly  true.  The  sins  Christ  has 
forgiven  are  dead,  but  they  are  not  gone.  If  none  of 
the  dead  go  from  us,  if  when  death  comes  a  new  and 
finer  life  begins,  and  he  whom  we  call  dead  is  with  us 
in  sweetest,  subtlest  portion  of  his  life,  with  everything 
of  harshness,  every  disagreement,  every  power  of  harm 
taken  out,  why  may  it  not  be  so  with  our  dead  sins  ? 
It  is  so,  surely !  There  is  a  soul  in  them  which  lives 
on  stni  while  their  body  of  wickedness  has  perished — 
a  soul  of  patience,  of  watchfulness,  of  gratitude,  and  of 
never-dying  love.  O  my  dear  friends,  we  have  not  done 
with  a  sin  of  ours,  we  have  not  finished  its  histoiy, 
until,  long,  long  after  it  has  died  in  the  kind  forgive- 
ness of  the  Saviour,  we  have  traced  the  eternal  career 
of  the  spirit  which  its  death  has  liberated  into  life,  giv- 
ing steadfastness  to  duty,  and  charity  to  friendship, 
and  unutterable  tenderness  to  the  love  of  the  Saviour 
till  eternity  shall  end. 

That  is  what  our  sins  shall  be  to  us  forever.  They 
die  as  sins  in  forgiveness  that  they  may  Kve  forever  as 
the  impulses  of  holiness  and  the  exhaustless  fountains 
of  love.  The  sin  that  never  dies  that  death  of  forgive- 
ness lives  on  as  sin.  This  is  the  difference  of  the  sin 
of  Judas  and  the  sin  of  Peter.     The  sin  of  Judas  sails 


ASH  WEDNESDAY.  129 

right  on  to  ever-growing  sin,  to  ever-growing  misery. 
The  sin  of  Peter  dies  in  pardon  to  live  again  in  grateful 
love ;  and  he  who  has  sinned  and  been  forgiven  finds 
in  his  new  life  with  his  Master  the  old  life  restored,  but 
deepened  and  fulfilled.  "We  leave  by  the  lakeside  him 
whom  we  found  there,  and  the  same  Jesus  is  with  him. 
But  his  knowledge  and  his  love  have  been  transfigured 
by  all  that  has  come  in  between.  He  is  richer  by  the 
history  of  liis  sin. 

They  say  in  England  that  as  the  wind  blows  on  Ash, 
Wednesday  so  it  will  blow  the  whole  of  Lent.  Oh,  if  to- 
day our  Lord  would  send  us  deep,  true,  simple  thoughts 
of  sin,  making  us  see  how  the  chance  of  it  is  bound  up 
in  our  very  manhood,  how  the  warning  of  it  sounds 
through  all  our  life,  how  the  doing  of  it  is  something 
on  whose  brink  we  are  always  walking,  and  how  the 
forgiveness  of  it  is  ready  in  the  merciful  hands !  Oh 
that  all  tliis  might  be  with  us  so  thoroughly  to-day  that 
these  coming  weeks  might  be  filled  to  the  brim  with 
seriousness  and  thoughtfulness  and  fear  and  hope! 
Then,  indeed,  God's  blessing  should  be  upon  our  Lent. 
Oh,  may  He  grant  it,  for  Christ's  sake ! 


IX. 

FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

"  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  iuto  the  wilderness  to  be 
tempted  of  the  devil." — Matt.  iv.  1. 

The  temptation  of  Jesus  is  certainly  a  very  wonder- 
ful event.  There  is  no  incident  in  all  His  history  on 
which  the  imagination  may  expend  itself  with  a  more 
lavish  speculation ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
none  that  comes  nearer  to  practical  life  with  stimulus 
and  comfort.  Christ,  with  His  baptism  just  accom- 
plished, went  into  the  desert,  and  after  He  had  fasted 
forty  days  and  was  become  very  hungry,  the  devil  came 
to  Him  and  tempted  Him,  The  story  is  famihar  to  us 
all.  It  is  far  too  large  to  treat  generally  in  a  single 
sermon ;  but,  assuming  a  knowledge  of  the  incident,  I 
want  to  make  a  few  suggestions  to-day,  first  upon  the 
fact,  then  upon  the  purpose,  and  then  upon  the  method 
of  our  Lord's  temptation. 

1.  And  first  of  all,  how  strange  it  seems  to  us  some- 
times that  there  should  be  such  a  thing  as  temptation 
in  the  world  at  all !  However  we  explain  it,  whatever 
glimpses  we  get  of  its  meaning,  it  must  always  be  strange 
to  us.  God  sends  us  into  the  world  and  hangs  in  the 
great  distance  before  us  certain  lofty  prizes — goodness, 
truth,  purity — which  He  has  made  our  hearts  capable  of 

130 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  131 

desiring.  He  starts  us  out  toward  those  prizes.  There 
they  hang  attracting  us.  Our  souls  really  desire  them. 
But  we  have  not  really  started  toward  them  before  the 
presence  of  another  power  begins  to  show  itself.  Hands 
pluck  at  us  to  draw  us  out  of  the  straight  way.  Voices 
call  to  us  with  enticements  or  with  threats  to  make  us 
turn  aside.  A  tempting  figure  lifts  itself  close  beside 
our  pathway.  Once  begun,  that  experience  never  ends. 
We  never  get  rid  of  temptation.  We  give  up  one  form 
of  occupation  and  think  to  escape  being  tempted,  and 
the  same  enticement  to  sin  in  some  new  shape  intrudes 
itself  right  in  the  midst  of  our  new  task.  No  adoption 
of  any  strict  rule  of  life,  no  separation  of  ourselves  from 
a  certain  region  of  dangerous  occupations,  sets  us  free 
from  the  persecution  of  temptation.  We  are  tempted 
to  sin  everywhere.  It  is  pathetic,  almost  terrible,  to 
think  how  long  this  has  been  going  on.  Through  all 
those  weary  years  which  it  tires  us  to  think  of,  they 
have  been  so  many ;  through  all  those  monotonous  gen- 
erations that  we  hear  flowing  on  endlessly  through  the 
cavernous  depths  of  history,  as  one  listens  to  a  stream 
dropping  down  monotonously  forever  undergi'ound ; 
through  all  the  years  and  generations  of  human  life 
men  have  been  tempted — not  one  that  ever  lived  that 
did  not  meet  this  persistent,  intrusive  enticement  to 
sin.  It  was  not  strange  that  some  men  learned  to 
doubt  of  a  God  at  aU.  It  was  not  strange  that  other 
men  came  to  believe  that  the  world  had  two  masters, 
almost  equal  rivals  in  power,  and  was  divided  between 
God  and  God's  enemy.  It  is  only  strange  that  with 
this  endlessly  reiterated  experience  so  many  men  were 
able  to  keep  on  believing  in  one  good  almighty  God. 


132  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

It  shows  how  dear  and  near  that  great  belief  lies  to  the 
human  heart,  that  not  even  its  own  sharp,  clear  experi- 
ence can  shp  in  between  and  separate  them. 

And  now  what  effect  has  this  temptation  of  our  Lord 
upon  this  strange  universal  experience  of  men  ?  That 
which  is  strange  and  universal  is  apt  to  become  unreal 
to  men.  They  explain  it  away.  They  become  deadened 
and  deafened  to  it.  And  men  in  many  ways  have  tried 
to  get  rid  of  this  persistent,  puzzHng  fact  of  a  great, 
wide,  evil  influence  in  the  world  trying  to  allure  men 
into  sin.  It  is  a  mere  form  of  education,  they  declare. 
It  is  a  mere  phase  in  man's  upward  growth.  "  It  is  not 
possible  " — so  runs  the  instinctive  remonstrance  of  the 
heart — "it  is  not  possible  that  every  man,  to  come  to 
God,  must  come  through  fire.  It  is  not  possible  that 
every  soul  must  walk  the  dizzy  verge  of  sin  and  ruin 
before  he  comes  to  holiness  and  life.  It  would  make 
the  world  too  terrible."  And  then,  with  men  saying 
and  feeling  that,  there  comes  the  incarnate  Christ. 
Summing  up  humanity  into  Himself,  He  Mves  the 
human  life,  and  lo !  right  at  the  very  gate  of  it  He 
meets  temptation.  There  stands  the  fact.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  temptation  of  Jesus  makes  one  whit  more 
plain  the  awful  mystery  of  the  presence  and  origin  of 
sin.  It  does  not  tell  us  why  that  precipice  of  tempta- 
tion must  skirt  the  human  life.  It  does  not  tell  us 
what  the  devil  is.  But  it  declares  the  fact  of  tempta- 
tion. It  declares  that  there  is  a  devil,  and  that  aU  men 
must  go  through  the  danger  of  sin.  All  theoretical 
possibilities  disappear  before  the  convincingness  of  that 
sight.  It  is  as  if  we  had  been  studying  our  own  pro- 
jection of  the  heavens  in  our  library  and  said,  "  There 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  133 

can  be  no  star  just  there,  in  that  spot  of  the  sky — there 
is  no  room  for  it  there,"  and  then  stepped  outside  our 
door  and  looked  up  at  the  heavens,  and  there  burned 
the  star  that  we  said  could  not  be,  just  in  the  very  spot 
where  we  could  see  no  room  for  it.  So,  if  a  man  re- 
ceives the  story  of  Christ  being  submitted  to  tempta- 
tion, all  his  own  theories  that  God  could  not  let  His 
children  be  tempted  must  give  way.  Here  is  the  Son 
of  God,  and  to  Him  the  devil  finds  free  access.  The 
fact  stands  plain  to  Him  upon  the  old  hill  of  Quaritania. 
The  man  who  has  seen  Christ  tempted  will  not  deny 
temptation  thenceforth.  He  will  not  be  found  explain- 
ing it  away.  He  will  not  delude  himself  with  vain 
hopes  of  escaping  it  and  living  a  smooth,  untempted 
life.  He  will  read  in  the  temptation  of  the  perfect  Life 
that  that  is  impossible  forever  for  any  man.  When  he 
is  depressed  and  hungry  and  exhausted,  he  will  look 
for  the  devil  as  his  Lord  did,  and  when  he  sees  him 
coming,  when  he  hears  his  words  and  feels  the  desire 
of  sin  stirring  in  his  heart,  he  will  not  say,  "  Oh,  this  is 
nothing  but  one  stage  of  my  gi-owth."  He  ■\^ill  recog- 
nize the  old  enemy  of  his  Master  coming  for  the  old 
battle,  and  gather  up  his  strength  and  pray  for  his  Mas- 
ter's strength  in  the  hour  of  terrible,  ine^-itable  struggle. 
One  other  truth  comes  out  from  the  very  fact  of  our 
Lord's  temptation.  It  is  the  truth  of  the  real  limits  of 
sin.  It  makes  us  see  where  sin  begins,  and  keeps  us  from 
thinking  that  to  be  sinful  which  is  really  innocent — 
an  error  which  is  hardly  less  dangerous  sometimes  than 
to  think  that  innocent  which  is  reaUy  sinful.  It  makes 
us  see  that  temptation  is  not  sin,  nor  does  it  necessarily 
involve  sin.   Christ  was  sinless  and  yet  tempted  j  there- 


134  FIEST   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

fore  it  is  possible  for  man  to  be  tempted  and  yet  sin- 
less. Now  so  many  of  us,  the  moment  we  are  strongly 
tempted,  seem  to  fall  into  a  sort  of  demoralized  condi- 
tion, as  if  our  innocence  were  over,  as  if  the  charm  were 
broken  and  we  were  already  sinners;  and  so  we  too 
often  give  ourselves  up  easily  to  the  sin.  A  man  goes 
on  through  his  boyhood  in  the  sweet  purity  of  uncon- 
sciousness. What  a  heaven,  what  a  very  garden  of 
Eden,  as  he  looks  back  upon  it  out  of  the  hot  life  that 
comes  afterward,  seems  that  quiet,  untempted  region 
lying  cool  between  its  four  rivers,  fresh  from  the  crea- 
tive hand  of  God  !  But  by  and  by  the  lusts  awoke.  The 
time  came  when  the  things  about  him,  wliich  he  had 
found  pure  wMle  he  looked  on  them  with  pure  eyes, 
sent  out  a  wholly  new  character,  and  began  to  entice 
and  threaten  and  allure  liis  soul  to  vice.  To  many  men 
the  first  discovery  of  that  capacity  of  being  tempted  by 
something  which  had  been  pure  to  them  before  is  such 
a  shock  that  it  seems  as  if  the  sin  were  done  already. 
The  very  power  to  be  tempted  seems  to  be  a  degrada- 
tion, and,  losing  our  pride,  our  hope,  our  loyalty,  our 
courage,  we  fall  with  a  too  terribly  easy  ease.  It  is  as 
if  a  soldier,  approached  with  a  bribe  and  asked  to  be  a 
traitor,  should  be  so  humiliated  that  any  man  should 
think  him  possibly  capable  of  treason  that  he  should 
seem  to  himself  almost  a  traitor  already,  and  so  cross 
the  line  which  seemed  to  him  so  narrow  and  become  a 
traitor  really.  To  any  soul  in  such  a  state  what  could 
we  say  but  this :  "  Look  up  and  see  the  truth  in  Jesus ; 
do  you  not  see  it  there  ?  To  be  tempted  is  not  wicked, 
is  not  shameful,  is  not  unworthy  even  of  Him.  It  is 
the  lot,  in  one  view  it  is  even  the  glory,  of  humanity. 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  ,      135 

Sin  does  not  begin  and  shame  does  not  begin  until  the 
will  gives  way,  until  you  jield  to  temptation.  Stand 
guard  over  that  will,  resist  temptation,  and  then  to  have 
been  tempted  shall  be  to  you  what  it  was  to  your  Saviour 
— a  glory  and  a  crown,  a  part  of  your  history  worthy 
to  be  written  with  thanksgiving  in  the  Book  of  Life, 
as  His  is  written  in  His  book  of  life."  Is  not  this  the 
strength  and  courage  that  many  a  soul  needs? 

If  this  be  true,  then  any  temptation  through  which  a 
man  may  go  without  yielding  is  a  glory  and  a  strength. 
But  this  brings  in  another  point.  Shall  men  go  on 
courting  temptations,  finding  them  out,  and  running 
into  them,  so  that  they  may  come  out  glorious  and 
strong  ?  Again,  look  at  Christ's  temptation.  There  is 
one  phrase  there  which  lights  up  the  whole  story. 
Chi'ist  was  "  led  up  of  the  Spirit  to  be  tempted  of  the 
devil."  He  had  a  certain  work  to  do.  Tliat  work  was 
not  His  own,  but  was  His  Fathei-'s.  His  Father's  Spirit 
guided  Him  and  told  Him  how  to  do  it.  For  some 
reason  (who  but  that  Spirit  can  say  wholly  what?)  it 
was  necessary  iu  the  doing  of  His  work  that  He  should 
meet  the  devil  in  the  wilderness.  Therefore  the  Spirit 
led  Him  there,  and,  filled  with  the  Spirit  all  the  time 
that  He  was  there,  by  and  by  He  came  down  safe  and 
victorious.  My  dear  friends,  we  too  have  a  work,  a 
duty.  Our  Father  gives  it  to  us  as  His  Father  gave 
His  to  Jesus.  In  doing  oui-  duty  the  Sph-it  of  our 
Father  may  often  lead  us  into  temptation,  but  if  He 
really  leads  us  there  He  wiU  protect  us  there.  If  He 
does  not  lead  us,  if  we  go  of  our  own  self-will,  we  have 
no  pledge  of  His  protection.  We  leave  at  the  door  the 
Guide  whose  company  is  safety.    We  have  no  more 


136  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

right,  then,  to  expect  to  be  kept  from  sin  than  Jesus 
would  have  had  to  expect  to  be  kept  from  death  if  a 
little  later,  in  His  own  self-will.  He  had  really  cast  Him- 
self down  off  of  the  temple.  Here  is  the  true  distinc- 
tion. Every  temptation  into  which  God's  Spirit  leads 
you  you  may  hope  to  conquer.  Into  every  temptation 
which  you  enter  of  your  own  self-will  you  carry  a  weak- 
ness that  already  prophesies  defeat.  If  your  duty  hes 
right  by  the  gates  of  hell,  walk  there  boldly,  and  the 
gates  of  heU  shaU  not  prevail  against  you.  K  your 
duty  does  not  carry  you  there  you  cannot  be  too  fastid- 
iously careful  for  your  purity,  to  keep  it  out  of  the  way 
of  every  lightest  zephyr  of  temptation.  Such  is  the 
manifest  difference  of  the  temptations  into  which  God 
leads  us  and  those  into  which  we  run  ourselves. 

For  God  does  lead  us  into  temptation.  Let  us  al- 
ways remember  that  that  petition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer 
which  anxious  souls  have  prayed  for  centuries,  "  Lead 
us  not  into  temptation,"  is  always  prayed  just  as  that 
other  one  is  prayed,  "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread." 
Both  are  prayed  with  a  clear  sight  of  the  possibility 
that  God  may  see  it  best  for  higher  purposes  to  do  just 
the  opposite — to  cut  off  our  daily  bread,  to  break  up  the 
walls  about  us  and  lead  us  right  into  temptation.  Both 
are  prayed  as  aU  prayers  must  be  prayed — as  loving, 
trusting,  filial  confidences,  telling  our  Father  what  we 
wish  that  He  would  do,  and  begging  Him  just  as  much 
to  do  the  opposite  if  He  sees  that  we  are  wrong  and 
that  the  opposite  is  better  for  us. 

2.  So  much  we  say  of  the  mere  fact  of  our  Lord's 
temptation.  But  there  is  something  more  than  this. 
We  are  almost  compelled  to  ask  what  we  can  kno'vir 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  137 

about  the  purpose  of  it.  Why  should  the  Saviour  com- 
iug  into  the  world  have  been  subjected  to  these  attacks 
of  sin?  Can  we  give  any  answer  to  that  question? 
Not  the  whole  answer,  certainly !  We  must  know  a 
great  deal  more  of  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  than 
we  know  yet  before  we  can  open  the  heart  of  God  and 
see  the  meaning  of  all  the  phases  through  which  the 
incarnate  Life  was  led.  But  something  we  can  see. 
There  are  three  suggestions  as  to  how  it  came  about 
that  Christ  was  tempted,  each  of  which  has  comfort 
and  assurance  in  it  for  us  who  follow  Him  and  are 
tempted  too.  The  first  thought  is  that  the  temptation 
was  involved  in  the  Incarnation — that  it  was  necessary ; 
that  it  could  not  be  avoided.  That  is  pui-pose  enough. 
If  you  meet  a  man  in  a  steamer  going  to  Europe,  and 
ask  him  why  he  came  to  sea,  he  tells  you  what  his  busi- 
ness is  in  Europe — why  he  had  to  go  there.  The  pur- 
pose of  his  going  there  is  his  purpose  in  crossing  the 
sea.  He  could  not  do  one  without  the  other.  And  so 
we  can  weU  believe  that  the  perfect  holiness  could  not 
come  into  this  wicked  world  to  save  us  without  coming 
to  struggle  with  the  sin  of  which  the  world  is  full. 
The  Incarnation  was  a  real  incarnation.  Christ  did  not 
play  at  being  made  man.  Into  everything  that  really 
belongs  to  humanity  He  perfectly  entered.  Only  be- 
cause sin  does  not  really  belong  to  humanity,  but  is  an 
intrusion,  an  excrescence,  He  did  not  enter  into  that. 
But  on  the  human  nature  into  which  He  did  enter  sin 
had  seized,  and  when  He  came  He  found  sin  there  and 
the  fight  was  inevitable.  Surely  it  gives  us  a  deep  idea 
of  how  thoroughly  Clirist  was  made  man,  of  the  humilia- 
tion which  He  undertook  for  us  when  He  was  made 


138  FERST  SUNDAY  EST  LENT. 

man,  and  of  the  inveteracy  and  universality  of  sin  in 
our  human  life,  when  we  think  that  the  Incarnation 
was  impossible  without  a  temptation ;  that  Jesus  could 
not  come  into  the  world  without  meeting  the  enemy 
who  claims  the  world  for  his  own.  If  this  is  true,  then 
the  love  that  brought  the  Saviour  to  the  world  is  reason 
enough  for  His  temptations.  But  we  can  see  other 
purposes  which  must  have  had  something  to  do  with  it. 
It  must  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  developing 
self-consciousness  of  Christ.  It  belongs  to  that  group 
of  events  in  what  is  the  springtune  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
when  His  power  and  work  were  breaking  its  restraints 
and  issuing  into  the  summer  of  full  activity.  The 
springtime  is  always  full  of  sweet  tumult  and  mystery ; 
but  its  great  idea,  manifest  everywhere,  is  education,  the 
bringing  forth  of  life.  Now  certainly  Jesus  was  being 
educated  there  in  the  wilderness.  When  the  devil  said 
to  Him,  "  Do  this,"  and  He,  turning  it  over  in  His  per- 
fect mind,  saw  that  to  do  that  would  be  to  disown  His 
Father,  and  so  indignant!}^  refused  to  do  it,  what  was 
going  on?  The  knowledge  of  His  Father,  the  need, 
towering  above  all  other  needs,  of  honoring  Him,  the 
sense  of  His  mission  of  struggle  and  victory,  the  need 
and  glory  of  resting  on  His  Father's  strength — all  these 
were  growing  strong  in  Him  there.  He  was  grasping 
and  trying  the  sword  of  the  Spirit.  When  He  came 
down  out  of  the  wilderness  He  knew  all  these  tilings  by 
heart.  He  was  holding  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  strongly 
in  both  hands.  And  then  the  other  thought  is  this : 
that  a  part  of  the  purpose  of  our  Lord's  temptation 
must  be  in  its  power  of  example  and  influence  for  us. 
He  was  the  leader  of  men  into  the  new  life,  and  so  He 


FIRST   SUNDAY   IN   LENT.  139 

must  go  the  way  that  they  would  have  to  go.  If  man- 
kind were  to  be  led  home  into  the  city  of  God,  it  might 
be  by  an  angel  fljdng  overhead,  clear  above  all  the  tops 
of  the  trees  through  which  they  had  to  force  their  way, 
out  of  sound  of  the  roaring  torrents  they  had  got  to 
cross ;  or  it  might  be  by  a  Man  walking  before  them, 
planting  His  feet  first  in  the  pathless  ways  where  the 
serpents  might  be  lurking,  wetting  His  foot  first  in 
every  cold  stream  that  His  followers  would  have  to 
ford.  Millions  of  men  who  would  have  lost  sight  of 
the  angel  will  follow  the  fellow-man.  He  bears  every 
difficulty  fii'st,  and  many  of  the  difficulties  He  takes 
away  by  bearing  them,  so  that  His  followers  do  not 
have  to  bear  them  at  aU ;  as  he  who  walks  first  through 
a  forest  breaks  down  many  a  branch,  so  that  his  follow- 
ers easily  tread  underfoot  what  he  has  once  for  all  cast 
down.  This  is  the  power  of  example  and  vicarious 
leadership  in  Christ's  temptation. 

What  other  purposes  there  may  have  been  we  cannot 
say,  but  we  are  very  sure  that  these  purposes  were  in 
that  wonderful  event ;  it  was  inevitable ;  it  was  part  of 
Christ's  education ;  it  was  for  the  example  and  salva- 
tion of  mankind. 

And  now  may  we  not  take  these  same  purposes  and 
find  them  in  any  temptation  into  which  God's  Spirit 
really  leads  any  of  our  struggling  souls  ?  You,  my  dear 
brother,  are  tempted  terribly  to  do  some  wicked  thing. 
Win  it  not  help  you  if  you  can  have  some  sort  of  an- 
swer to  the  question  that  is  crowding  on  your  heart : 
"  Why  does  God  let  me  be  so  tempted  ?  How  is  it  pos- 
sible that  He  can  let  His  child  be  so  buffeted  and  enticed 
by  sin  ? "   The  answer  comes  fi-om  the  manifest  purposes 


140  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

of  your  Lord's  temptation.  It  is  inevitable  for  you,  just 
as  it  was  for  Him.  You  cannot  be  man  and  live  a 
man's  life  without  coming  into  this  world  where  sin  is 
and  where  you  must  be  tried.  He  cannot  save  you 
from  it  without  taking  you  out  of  manhood  and  lifting 
you  into  some  superior  life  where  all  that  is  dear,  as 
well  as  all  that  is  dangerous,  in  this  human  life  shall  be 
left  behind  you.  That  is  one  reason.  And  the  next  is 
that  you  are  being  educated  here.  That  great  tempta- 
tion that  comes  swaggering  up  and  frightening  you  so 
has  got  the  best  part  of  your  character  held  under  his 
brawny  arm.  You  cannot  get  it  without  wrestling  with 
him  and  forcing  it  away  from  him.  That  mountain 
that  towers  up  and  defies  you  has  got  your  spiritual 
health  away  up  on  its  snowy  summit.  That  is  what 
shines  there  in  the  sun.  You  cannot  reach  it  except  by 
the  terrible  climb.  Ask  yourseK  what  you  would  have 
been  if  you  had  never  been  tempted,  and  own  what  a 
blessed  thing  the  educating  power  of  temptation  is. 
And  then  the  third  purpose  comes  in  too.  As  Christ's 
temptation  was  vicarious,  and  when  He  conquered  He 
conquered  for  others  besides  Himself,  so  it  is  with  us. 
There  are  men  and  women  all  around  us  who  have  got 
to  meet  the  same  temptations  that  we  are  meeting. 
Will  it  help  them  or  not  to  know  that  we  have  met 
them  and  conquered  them  ?  Will  it  help  us  or  not  to 
know  that  if  we  conquer  the  temptation  we  conquer  not 
for  ourselves  only,  but  for  them  ?  Will  it  help  the  mas- 
ter of  a  great  business  house  or  not  to  know  that  if  he 
resists  the  temptation  to  cheat  on  a  large  scale  it  will 
help  every  clerk  at  the  counter  to  resist  his  petty  temp- 
tation to  his  little  fraud  ?   Will  it  help  a  father  to  keep 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  141 

sober  or  not  if  he  knows  that  in  liis  Adetory  over  drink 
his  son's  victory  becomes  easier  ?  The  vicariousness  of 
all  life  !  There  is  not  one  of  us  who  has  not  some  one 
more  or  less  remotely  fastened  to  his  acts,  concerning 
whom  he  may  say,  as  Christ  said,  "  For  their  sakes  I 
sanctify  myself." 

These  are  the  purposes  of  temptation.  Let  a  man 
feel  them,  and  they  take  all  whine  out  of  him  and  put 
all  manliness  into  him.  Let  a  man  feel  them  all,  and 
then,  as  temptation  comes,  he  gives  it  a  brave  and  hum- 
ble welcome.  "  Come  on,"  he  says.  "  I  am  going  to  be 
tempted.  I  am  going  to  meet  the  inevitable  necessity 
of  my  manhood.  I  am  going  to  meet  the  chance  of 
being  a  better  man.  I  am  going  into  a  dark,  rough  path, 
wliich,  if  I  walk  it  well,  shall  be  smoother  and  brighter 
for  other  men  who  are  to  walk  it  afterward."  Can  you 
conceive  of  a  man  meeting  temptation  so  manfully  as 
that  and  not  conquering  it  ?  And  remember,  it  is  only 
into  the  temptations  where  it  is  at  least  possible  for 
these  purposes  to  be  fulfilled  that  the  Spirit  of  God  ever 
leads  a  man,  or  a  man  ever  has  a  right  to  go.  Is  there 
not  here  a  practical  rule  ?  What  a  line  it  draws !  That 
man  who  seeks  the  drinking-shop  of  his  own  free  will 
is  going  neither  by  a  necessity  of  his  manhood,  nor  for 
education,  nor  for  example  to  others.  He  has  no  busi- 
ness there.  It  is  not  God's  Spirit  that  is  leading  him. 
That  young  boy  who  went  out  of  the  pure  atmosphere 
of  a  carefully  guarded  home  into  the  corruption  of  the 
regiment  and  the  camp  went  because  he  could  not  stay 
away  and  be  a  man ;  because  there  was  the  chance  there 
to  be  made  purer ;  because  if  he  were  pure  there  other 
men  around  him  would  be  pure  too,  by  his  purity.     It 


142  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN   LENT. 

was  God's  Spirit  that  called  him  out  to  be  tempted  of 
the  devil.     So  may  we  always  test  our  temptations. 

3.  And  now  tliat  we  have  spoken  of  the  fact  and  pur- 
pose of  our  Lord's  temptation,  let  us  say  a  few  words 
about  its  method.  This  takes  us  a  little  more  into  detad, 
and  obliges  us  to  recall  the  three  different  approaches 
that  the  evil  spirit  made  to  Christ.  We  can  say  only  a 
word  on  each.  I  hope  you  remember  the  story  well 
enough  to  follow  me.  The  first  temptation  is  told  thus. 
Remember  He  was  all  worn  out  and  hungry.  "And  when 
the  tempter  came  to  Him,  he  said,  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of 
God,  command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread.  But 
He  answered  and  said,  It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live 
by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  God."  Now  see  what  that  temptation 
was.  It  appealed  to  the  healthy  senses  of  man.  It 
said,  "  You  need  food.  God  made  food  for  you.  God 
gave  you  the  power  to  make  it  for  yourself.  Now  use 
your  power  and  fulfil  God's  will."  And  there  was  the 
hunger  gnawing  all  the  while  and  saying  "Amen"  to 
the  devil's  words.  Jesus  knew  that  bread  was  good. 
When  He  was  made  man  He  was  made  to  need  bread 
just  like  the  humblest  and  most  degraded  being  who 
wore  a  human  body.  There  was  nothing  low  in  the  de- 
sire. Man  was  made  to  live  by  bread ;  only — and  here 
comes  in  Christ's  noble  sword  of  the  Spirit,  cutting  the 
knot  of  the  specious  temptation  right  in  two — only, 
man  was  not  made  to  live  by  bread  alone.  God  gives 
him  bread  to  live  by ;  but  when  the  Giver  of  the  bread 
puts  out  His  hand  upon  the  loaf  and  says,  "  Stop  !  Now 
there  is  a  higher  life  than  that  which  is  fed  by  the  tast- 
ing of  bread,  and  that  is  fed  by  the  not  tasting  it"j 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  143 

when  He  who  gave  the  body  its  food  takes  that  away  in 
order  to  feed  the  so  id,  and  sends  hunger  because  only 
by  hunger  can  come  truth,  what  shall  he  say  but  this : 
"  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  so  I  shall  not  won- 
der even  when  He  takes  the  bread  away,  nor  dare  nor 
wish  to  interfere  "  ? 

So  fai'  from  thinking  it  strange  that  Christ  should 
have  felt  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  the  craving  after 
food,  I  cannot  but  believe,  believing,  as  I  do,  in  His 
perfect  humanity,  that  food  had  a  healthy  beauty  and 
delight  for  Him  just  in  proportion  to  His  perfectness. 
I  believe  that  there  was  never  a  man  in  whom  every 
keen  appetite  of  human  life  was  so  alert  and  strong.  I 
believe  that  to  His  eyes  the  blue  skies  were  bluer  and 
the  green  carpet  of  the  earth  greener  than  any  duller 
eyes  have  ever  seen  them.  His  ears  heard  something 
in  the  insect's  chirp  and  the  bird's  song  that  no  other 
ears  have  ever  caught.  No  other  man  has  known  the 
wind  so  fresh,  the  flower  so  fragi'ant,  or  the  sun  so 
bright.  The  beauty  of  the  world  and  the  joy  of  Uving 
in  it  have  never  come  so  near  to  any  senses  as  they 
poured  themselves  into  the  perfect  perceptions  of  the 
Man  of  Nazareth.  And  so  we  can  know  nothing  of  the 
degree  of  that  temptation  which  He  conquered  when  He 
said,  "Yes,  they  are  aU  good  and  beautiful,  but  they 
must  all  break  away  to  let  down  on  Me  what  is  worth 
them  all — one  clear  utterance  of  the  will  of  God: 
'  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word 
that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God.' " 

Do  you  not  see  what  the  temptation  was  and  what  it 
is  forever?  O  my  dear  friend,  God  made  these  things, 
and  made  you  to  live  by  them,  but  not  by  them  alone. 


144  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

Go  on ;  gather  the  joy  out  of  the  earth  and  sky,  out  of 
the  bread  He  gives  you  power  to  win,  out  of  the  water 
that  He  makes  to  gush  at  your  feet;  only,  when  the 
time  comes — as  it  is  sure  to  come  some  time,  as  per- 
haps it  is  to  come  now — when,  in  order  to  speak  some 
word  out  of  His  mouth  to  you,  some  word  of  duty  or 
charity  or  hohness.  He  takes  these  things  away,  and 
you  are  tempted  to  shut  your  ear  to  His  word  in  order 
that  you  may  keep  these  pleasant  things,  then  you  are 
just  where  Jesus  was — the  devil  is  at  your  ear.  May 
God  help  you  to  see  what  Jesus  saw — what  He  said 
afterward,  perhaps  remembering  His  own  temptation  : 
"  The  life  is  more  than  meat,"  May  He  help  you  to  say, 
''  No  !  Nothing — not  even  His  gifts — shall  blind  or 
deafen  me  to  Him.  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone, 
but  by  every  word  out  of  the  mouth  of  God" — the 
blessed  sacrifice  of  sense  to  spirit. 

What  was  the  next  temptation  ?  St.  Matthew  tells  it 
as  simply  as  he  told  the  first :  "  Then  the  devil  taketh 
Him  up  into  the  Holy  City,  and  setteth  Him  on  a  pin- 
nacle of  the  temple,  and  saith  unto  Him,  If  Thou  be  the 
Son  of  God,  cast  Thyself  down :  for  it  is  written,  He 
shall  give  His  angels  charge  concerning  Thee :  and  in 
their  hands  they  shall  bear  Thee  up,  lest  at  any  time 
Thou  dash  Thy  foot  against  a  stone."  And  Jesus  an- 
swered, "  It  is  written  again.  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the 
Lord  thy  God."  The  exact  nature  of  the  transaction 
need  not  concern  us  now.  History  or  parable,  its 
lesson  is  the  same.  And  what  is  it ?  ''If  Thou  be  the 
Son  of  God,  cast  Thyself  down."  The  appeal  is  made 
to  the  deepest  self-knowledge  of  Jesus.  He  knew  that 
He  was  the  Son  of  God.    Just  before  He  came  into  the 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  145 

wilderness,  at  His  baptism,  His  Father  had  claimed 
Him  from  the  opened  sky,  saying,  ''  This  is  My  beloved 
Son ! "  and  we  cannot  tell  what  memories  and  sym- 
pathies, what  a  flood  of  self- witness,  that  voice  stirred 
in  the  soul  of  the  divine  Lord,  just  becoming  conscious 
of  His  own  divinity.  He  knew  that  He  was  God's  Son, 
and  yet  here  He  seemed  deserted  and  shut  out  and  lost. 
He  could  not  recognize  or  find  His  Father.  That  must 
have  been  a  pain  to  Him  to  which  the  hunger  of  the 
body  was  nothing,  that  hunger  of  the  soul.  And  then 
the  devil  says,  "  Prove  your  Sonship ;  find  your  Father, 
force  Him  to  own  you  by  flinging  yourself  into  a  dan- 
ger from  which  He  must  save  you."  It  was  an  appeal 
to  the  spiritual  nature — a  more  trying  temptation  to 
a  more  sensitive  part  of  the  being  than  before.  And 
what  does  Jesus  say  ?  How  calm  His  answer  is !  "  No  ! 
I  must  not  tempt  the  Lord  My  God.  I  am  His  Son.  I 
know  it  even  when  I  seem  most  deserted.  It  is  not 
Mine  to  dictate  how  He  shaU  show  His  Fatherhood.  It 
is  not  Mine  to  create  difiiculties  just  that  His  fatherly 
care  may  conquer  them.  Let  Me  wait,  and  in  His  own 
good  time  and  way  He  will  show  Himself  to  Me  more 
clearly  than  if  His  hand  caught  Me  half-way  between 
the  pinnacle  and  the  pavement."  Do  we  know  any- 
thing  about  that  temptation  f  Does  any  such  enticing 
whisper  ever  creep  into  our  ears ?  "I  am  a  Christian, 
and  so  Christ  must  keep  me,  and  I  can  go  here  and  be 
safe,  I  can  walk  through  that  mire  and  not  be  defiled,  I 
can  walk  through  that  fii-e  and  not  be  burned.  I  am  a 
Christian — Christ  holds  me  in  the  hands  of  His  super- 
natural grace ;  and  so  the  natural  care  and  caution,  the 
watchfulness  over  my  actions,  is  less  necessary  to  me." 


146  FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

Do  we  know  anything  of  that  spirit?  If  ever  our 
religion  has  weakened  onr  moral  vigor  instead  of 
strengthening  it,  if  ever  we  have  forgotten  that  we  are 
made  Christians,  not  that  we  may  be  freed  fi-om  any 
responsibilities,  but  that  we  may  take  every  responsibil- 
ity more  steadily  on  shoulders  made  strong  for  it  by 
the  strength  of  Christ ;  if  ever  in  srny  way  the  thouglit 
of  spiritual  privilege  has  tried  to  draw  us  away  from 
the  everlasting,  central  thought  of  duty,  the  absolute 
necessity  of  watchfulness  and  faithfulness ;  if  ever,  in 
order  to  realize  God  more  completely,  you  have  been 
tempted  to  go  out  of  the  path  of  simple  duty  where  He 
has  set  you,  it  has  been  Christ's  temptation  over  again. 

I  hope  you  see  how  much  harder  this  temptation  is 
than  the  other.  Strange  how  as  a  man  grows  more 
spiritual  he  meets  new  dangers  that  he  never  knew 
when  he  was  carnal.  The  higher  man  attains  higher 
temptations.  The  climber  on  the  Alps  meets  dangers 
up  among  the  clouds  that  men  and  women  in  the  val- 
leys never  know.  To  hunger  for  bread  is  terrible,  and 
may  drive  a  man  to  great  wickedness ;  but  to  hunger 
for  a  God  who  seems  to  refuse  Himself  is  infinitely 
more  terrible,  and  may  drive  to  wickedness  far  more 
intense  the  soul  that  cannot  wait  in  trust  till  God  shall 
claim  the  child  whom  He  has  not  forgotten  for  an  in- 
stant, in  His  own  way. 

Of  the  tliird  temptation  we  can  allow  ourselves  but  a 
single  word :  "Again,  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  an 
exceeding  high  mountain,  and  showeth  Him  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them ;  and 
saith  unto  Him,  All  these  tilings  will  I  give  Thee,  if 
Thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me."    And  was  that 


FIRST  SUNDAY  ES"  LENT.  147 

a  temptation?  Did  Jesus  want  those  kingdoms  and 
their  glory  ?  Surely  He  did.  Not  for  themselves,  not 
for  the  comforts  they  could  fm-nish  Him,  not  with  the 
ordinary  covetousness  of  avaricious  men,  but  yet  He 
wanted  them  intenselj'.  He  had  come  to  win  them,  He 
had  come  to  purchase  them  with  His  own  blood.  He 
stood  with  His  heart  full  of  blessings,  and  the  world 
would  not  take  them.  He  wanted  that  world  that  He 
might  poui'  His  blessings  in  upon  it.  And  here  stood 
the  devil  and  said,  "  Once  bow  the  knee  to  me  and  it  is 
aR  yours.  Do  one  wrong  thing  and  all  those  great 
divine  longings  of  youi-s  shall  have  fi*ee  course,  and 
you  shall  do  for  this  stubborn  world  all  that  you  want 
to  do  !  "  Ah,  you  and  I  must  know  how  Jesus  longed 
to  bless  men  before  we  can  have  any  idea  what  that 
temptation  was  to  Him ;  but  if  you  have  ever  had  a 
friend  whom  with  the  purest  spnpathy  and  love  you 
longed  to  bless  and  help,  who  shut  himself  up  against 
you ;  and  if  the  time  has  come  when  you  have  seen,  or 
thought  that  you  have  seen,  just  how,  by  one  wrong 
act,  by  one  concession  to  his  standards,  by  one  compli- 
ance, you  could  get  the  access  to  him  that  you  wanted ; 
if  then  all  your  love  for  him  has  poui*ed  in  its  influence 
to  make  you  do  that  one  wrong  thing,  then  you  know 
of  what  sort  this  last  temptation  of  our  Saviour  was. 
And  it  is  the  most  terrible  temptation  that  any  man 
can  feel.  It  bm-ns  its  way  into  the  life  with  all  the  fire 
of  our  warmest  love.  How  it  touched  Jesus  to  the 
quick  we  can  see  in  the  intensity  of  the  indignation 
with  which  He  turned  against  it.  "Get  thee  hence, 
Satan,"  He  cries  out.  This  temptation  had  come  nearer 
to  His  heart  than  either  of  the  others. 


148  FIRST  SUNDAY   IN   LENT. 

Again  we  see  how  as  a  man  becomes  higher  he  be- 
comes capable  of  higher  temptations.  Of  these  three 
temptations  of  Jesus  the  first  appealed  to  His  bodily 
appetites,  the  second  to  His  need  of  His  Father,  the 
thii'd  to  His  love  of  His  brethren.  To  be  tempted  in 
the  first  way  one  must  merely  be  a  man  ;  to  be  tempted 
in  the  second  way  one  must  crave  for  himself  the  life 
with  God ;  but  to  be  tempted  in  the  third  way  one  must 
have  passed  beyond  himself  and  long  for  the  highest 
blessings  of  his  fellow-men.  None  but  the  Chi-ist-like 
man  can  know  what  it  is  to  be  tempted  like  Christ. 

Does  that  seem  hard  ?  Does  it  open  a  dreary  pros- 
pect to  know  that  as  you  gi'ow  higher  and  higher,  while 
you  leave  many  temptations  below  you,  you  will  be 
always  meeting  new  ones  in  the  upper  ah-  ?  But  if  it 
be  so  that  this  world  is  all  tuned  and  tempered  with 
temptation,  if  the  life  cannot  live  withoiit  it  here  any 
more  than  the  lungs  can  breathe  without  oxygen  in  the 
air,  then  may  we  not  be  thankful  that  there  is  no  moun- 
tain-top whose  atmosphere  is  so  thin  as  to  lack  this  ever 
necessary  element  of  life,  and  so  there  is  no  mountain 
that  we  may  not  climb  ?  There  will  come  a  world  where 
there  will  be  no  temptation — a  garden  with  no  serpent, 
a  city  with  no  sin.  The  harvest  day  will  come  and  the 
wheat  be  gathered  safe  into  the  Mastei*'s  barn.  It  mHI 
be  very  sweet  and  glorious.  Our  tired  hearts  rest  on 
the  promises  with  peaceful  delight.  But  that  time  is 
not  5^et.  Here  are  our  tempted  lives,  and  here,  right 
in  the  midst  of  us,  stands  om*  tempted  Saviour.  If  we 
are  men  we  shall  meet  temptation  as  He  met  it,  in  the 
strength  of  the  God  who  is  the  Father  of  whom  all  men 
are  children.    Every  temptation  that  attacks  us  attacked 


FIRST  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  149 

Him  and  was  conquered.  We  are  fighting  with  a  de- 
feated enemy.  We  are  struggling  for  a  victory  wliich 
is  already  won.  That  may  be  oiu*  strength  and  assur- 
ance as  we  recall,  whenever  our  struggle  becomes  hot- 
test and  most  trying,  the  wonderful  and  blessed  day 
when  Jesus  was  "  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilder- 
ness to  be  tempted  of  the  devil." 


f 


X. 

SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

"It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  ^^od." — Matt.  iv.  4. 

A  QUOTATION  by  Christ  of  the  words  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament has  a  great  value  apart  from  the  common  use 
which  is  made  of  such  passages  in  connection  with  the 
evidences  of  the  Bible.  The  Old  Testament — it  is  very- 
necessary  that  we  should  always  feel  it — is  on  a  far 
lower  plane  of  life  than  the  New.  That  was  the  pre- 
paratory, this  is  the  perfect  book.  In  that  man  was 
worldng  under  God's  guidance;  in  this  God  works 
directly,  taking  His  place  among  men  in  the  person  of 
His  Son,  teaching  by  His  own  audible  words,  guiding 
by  His  own  visible  hand.  When  Christ,  then,  quotes 
from  the  Old  Testament,  when  He  takes  the  words  that 
were  spoken  of  some  of  the  men  of  old  and  uses  them 
of  Himself,  He  is  really  asserting  the  intimate  connec- 
tion, the  identity  of  life,  between  the  lower  and  the 
higher,  the  human  and  the  divine,  planes  of  being.  He 
is  declaring  that  what  is  true  of  one  in  an  inferior  is  true 
of  the  other  in  a  superior  degree.  He  is  extending  the 
conditions  of  humanity  and  showing  how  they  repre- 
sent and  echo  the  conditions  of  Divinity.  Every  one 
of  these  lines  of  quotation  running  between  the  Testa- 
ments— what  is  it  but  one  of  a  multitude  of  golden 

150 


SECOND  SUNDAY  IN   LENT.  151 

chords  which  hold  the  life  of  God  not  merely  into  a 
connection  of  relationship,  but  into  a  connection  of  re- 
semblance with  the  life  of  man,  who  is  His  creature  and 
His  copy  ?  All  together,  what  are  they  but  a  new  as- 
surance of  that  truth  whose  supreme  revelation  was 
given  us  by  the  manifestation  of  the  Divine-human  in 
the  Incarnation  of  our  Redeemer  ? 

I  find  this  truth,  which  makes  so  much  of  the  life  of 
my  Bible,  pecuKarly  evident  in  the  words  from  which 
I  am  to  speak  to  you  to-day.  Christ  was  in  the  midst 
of  His  mysterious  temptation.  The  tempter  had  tried 
upon  His  weary  and  exhausted  nature  one  resource  of 
devilish  cunning  after  another.  At  last  came  this  ap- 
peal :  "  If  Thou  be  the  Sou  of  God,  command  that  these 
stones  be  made  bread."  It  was  the  very  magnificence 
of  effrontery,  it  was  part  of  the  same  superb  impiety 
which  once  in  heaven  had  counted  God's  authority 
capable  of  overthrow,  which  thus  tried  to  derange  the 
calmness  of  divine  consistency  by  an  appeal  to  the  low 
necessity  of  hunger.  We  read  the  chapter  so  often 
that  we  do  not  realize  how  strange  Christ's  answer  is : 
but  if  we  had  stood  there  and  heard  the  Satanic  demand 
made  we  should  have  waited,  stopping  our  breath  to 
hear  some  supreme  assertion  of  the  Godhood  that  re- 
pelled so  low  an  insult.  "  Go  to  men,"  we  should  have 
listened  for  the  Lord  to  say — "go  to  men  with  argu- 
ments like  those.  Their  natures  are  built  to  answer 
such  appeals.  All  that  a  man  hath  will  lie  give  for  that 
life  which  bread  must  feed.  But  God  must  be  tempted, 
O  tempter,  with  higher  trials  than  that.  Do  not  bring 
to  the  Divine  those  inducements  whicb  entice  only  the 
human." 


152  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LKNT. 

I  love  Ckrist  all  the  more  when  I  see  how  different 
His  answer  was  from  that.  I  love  Him  when  I  see  Him 
declare  Himself  a  man,  and  from  the  human  standpoint 
fling  aside  the  tempter's  plea,  I  reverence  and  cling 
to  the  true  human  nature  that  there  was  in  Him  when 
I  hear  Him  go  back  and  take  up  the  words  that  had 
been  on  human  lips,  that  declared  the  resources  of  hu- 
man natm-e,  that  asserted  the  higher  life  in  Man :  "  It 
is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God." 
The  danger  is  to  us  who  hold  so  much  to  the  divinity 
of  Christ  that  His  humanity  will  mean  too  little.  Let 
us  remember  that  in  times  such  as  tliis  of  the  tempta- 
tion there  is  a  strength  for  us  in  the  thought  that  it 
was  a  man  who  fought  and  conquered,  which  no  simple 
assurance  of  His  being  God  could  give. 

The  subject  that  these  words  of  Christ  include,  then, 
and  of  which  we  are  now  to  speak,  is  the  requu-ements 
of  life  in  man.  "Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone, 
but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of 
God." 

What  is  it  in  the  highest  sense  to  do  what  all  men 
try  to  do  in  some  sense,  to  get  a  living  ?  Those  words 
are  very  lightly  used,  and  narrowed  down  to  very  insig- 
nificant dimensions.  In  their  largest  employment  they 
include  all  the  maturest  culture  and  best  growth  of  the 
human  body,  mind,  and  soul. 

"  Man  doth  not  hve !  "  Before  the  thought  of  life  aU 
treatment  practical,  as  well  as  speculative,  stands  defied 
and  puzzled.  Just  as  the  surgeon's  knife  lays  skin  and 
flesh  aside,  dissects  the  mystery  of  every  vital  organ, 
hunts  being  back  into  its  most  sacred  citadel,  and  finds 


SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  153 

it  there  elude  him — finds  everywhere  the  machinery  of 
life,  nowhere  life  itself ;  just  as  the  metaphysician  lays 
an  authoritative  hand  on  thought,  emotion,  will,  and 
bids  them  stand  before  him  and  declare  the  secrets  of 
their  operation,  but  no  profoundest  searcher  has  yet 
found  what  mystery  it  is  by  which  the  being  lives  who 
thinks  and  loves  and  wills  so  wonderfully,  so  to  the 
teacher  of  the  proper  conduct  and  true  results  of  life, 
that  life  itself  always  abides  behind  his  work,  wrapped 
in  an  eternal  mystery  which  is  only  typified  by  the  un- 
broken reserve  with  which  the  great  earth  clothes  her 
white  fields  for  our  eating  and  pours  out  rivers  for  our 
drinking,  but  lets  us  know  nothing  of  the  untold  nature 
out  of  which  the  springs  and  the  corn-fields  come.  Or 
again,  the  thought  of  life  is  like  that  untouched  line  we 
call  the  sky,  which  sweeps  around  us  the  clear  circle  of 
its  horizon,  from  which  we  measure  with  a  perfect  ac- 
curacy, and  builds  above  us  a  blue  dome  under  which 
our  life  goes  on  protected  and  assured,  but  which,  when 
we  try  to  reach  it,  proves  to  be  not  one  single  hue,  but 
an  infinite  depth,  heaven  beyond  heaven  stored  with 
what  strange  uses  and  benefactions  we  dare  not  say. 
So  is  it  not  true  that  the  idea  of  Ufe  is  realized  thus 
only  as  it  exists  in  degrees  infinitely  deep,  taking  sharp 
lines  for  practical  uses,  just  as  the  atmosphere  does  in 
the  distinct  outlines  of  the  sky  ? 

At  any  rate,  no  one  can  doubt  that  this  word  "  life  " 
means  very  different  things  for  different  people  and  at 
different  times.  Life,  first  of  all,  is  that  about  this 
physical  structure  by  which  it  is  kept  active ;  it  is  that 
unfound  something  by  which  this  heart  beats  on  from 
the  baby's  first  cry  to  the  veteran's  last  prayer ;  by  which 


154  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

the  red  blood  runs  its  silent  errand  and  all  the  forces 
of  whicli  the  physiologist  gives  you  the  names  are  kept 
in  operation.  And  again,  life  means  something  more 
when  the  purposes  of  beating  hearts  and  tireless  blood 
are  taken  into  account.  Every  result  to  which  this 
living  man  may  minister  is  included  under  this  great 
word.  Intellectual  hfe  we  speak  of — the  thinking,  know- 
ing, learning,  inventive  faculties  in  all  the  cu'cle  of  their 
operations ;  this  constitutes  the  second  cii'cle  of  the  great 
whole  of  Hfe.  And  outside  of  that,  above  it,  larger  than 
it,  what  we  call  moral  life,  the  powers  of  choice  and 
duty,  involving  the  whole  social  or  related  being,  the 
emotional  existence,  with  the  complications  it  involves 
— every  part  of  human  nature  which  leads  to  and  re- 
sults in  an  ought  or  an  ought  not ;  this  is  the  third  zone 
in  the  great  atmosphere  of  being.  And  beyond  aU 
these,  the  outermost  of  all,  highest  of  all,  most  infinite, 
bounding  most  closely  on  the  life  of  God,  man's  spirit- 
ual life,  whereby  his  nature  is  in  connection,  tlirough 
its  distinctively  religious  faculties,  with  the  nature  that 
is  supernatural  and  divine. 

Now  the  true  thought  of  life  includes  all  four  of 
these',  not  any  one  or  two  or  three  of  them,  but  all 
four.  Breathing  is  not  life,  thought  is  not  life,  duty  is 
not  life.  The  perfect  life  includes  them  all.  No  man 
is  thoroughly,  that  is,  through  and  through,  alive  unless 
from  end  to  end  of  his  capacity  that  capacity  is  full. 
Complete  life  involves  the  conception  of  a  body  with 
every  power  perfect,  a  mind  with  every  ability  active, 
a  conscience  that  never  swerves  from  purity,  a  spu'it 
that  reaches  to  and  fastens  itself  on  God.  Everything 
short  of  that  is  stagnated,  impeded,  partial  life.     To 


SECOND   SUNDAY  ESf  LENT.  155 

complete  that  high  result  is  what  a  man  ought  to  mean 
when  he  talks  about  "  getting  a  living."  Is  it  not  one 
of  the  mortifying  things,  dear  friends,  to  take  now  and 
then  these  words  that  we  are  using  every  day  so  lightly 
and  see  how  much  they  really  mean ;  to  wipe  through 
the  dust  and  rust  that  ai-e  on  these  coin-words,  which 
constant  friction  has  worn  so  smooth  and  unimpressive, 
and  look  upon  the  royal  image  and  superscription  that 
is  on  them  f 

Now  we  are  obliged  to  keep  this  thought  of  life  com- 
plete in  all  its  parts  if  we  want  to  understand  om*  text. 
We  want  to  fill  oui'selves  full  of  this  idea  of  what  it  is 
to  live,  and  then  we  are  prepared  to  read :  "  Man  shall 
not  hve  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  pro- 
ceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God."  With  a  sublime 
figure  man  is  represented  as  feeding  on  the  words  of 
God,  and  every  word  of  God  must  come  for  nurture  to 
the  life  that  is  made  up  of  many  parts.  How  splendid 
the  figure  is  !  God  stands  upon  the  summit  of  His  na- 
ture and  speaks  His  words,  which  in  the  absoluteness 
of  His  power  turn  themselves  at  once  to  deeds  and 
blessings.  He  speaks  once :  "■  Let  the  earth  bring  forth 
grass,  the  herb  yielding  seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  yield- 
ing fruit."  And  as  He  spoke,  those  words,  "proceed- 
ing out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Lord,"  were  caught  by  the 
quick,  obedient  ground  of  Genesis,  and  became  the 
power  by  which  the  physical  life  of  man  in  all  his  gen- 
erations has  been  nourished.  He  speaks  again,  in  that 
vast  voice  which  utters  itself  through  all  of  nature  and 
of  human  history :  "  Let  man  be  wise,  let  him  learn, 
let  him  know,"  and  all  that  endless  word  of  God  has 
been  the  food  of  man's  intellectual  craving  since  the 


156  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

first  student  rejoiced  in  the  first  truth.  Again,  He 
speaks  out  of  some  Sinai  mountain,  or  out  of  that  Sinai 
of  the  inner  life,  our  conscience.  "  Do  this,"  He  says, 
"  and  live,"  laying  down  duty  after  duty,  which  the 
moral  nature  takes  to  itself  and  feeds  upon,  and  grows 
by  them  into  rectitude  and  strength.  And  then,  last 
of  all,  to  the  highest  life  of  all.  He  utters  His  sublimest 
voice.  What  shall  we  say  that  last  word  is  by  which 
He  utters  Himself  to,  on  which  He  feeds,  man's  deep 
religious  nature?  What  can  it  be  but  that  eternal 
"  Word  "  which  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,  which 
was  God,  which  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us ; 
that  bread  of  life  which  came  down  from  heaven,  of 
which  a  man  may  eat  and  never  die;  the  fullness  of 
divine  utterance  in  the  world's  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ  ? 

This  is  the  impressive  figiu'e  of  human  nature  feed- 
ing on  the  words  of  God.  Its  truth  is  simply  an  an- 
nouncement of  the  vast  and  various  demands  of  human 
life ;  of  the  needs  of  man,  and  of  the  special  provisions 
— by  providence,  by  wisdom,  by  dut}',  and  by  gi'ace — 
which  God  has  made  that  no  one  of  those  needs  should 
go  unmet. 

What  have  we  reached,  then?  We  have  seen  that 
human  life  exists  by  God's  decree  in  various  depart- 
ments or  degrees,  and  that  He  has  made  specific  provi- 
sion for  the  support  of  each  one  of  these  kinds  of 
human  being.  If  this  be  so,  then  it  is  evident  that  each 
life  needs  and  must  have  its  own  peculiar  nourishment ; 
that  the  life  of  one  of  the  lower  natm-es  that  belong  to 
man  can  never  supply  the  lack  of  life  in  a  higher.  No 
man  grows  wiser  by  simply  growing  physically  stronger. 
Any  magnificent  ruffian  out  of  a  street  mob,  with  his 


SECOND   SUNDAY   IN   LENT.  157 

splendid  strength  of  body  and  his  wretched  emptiness 
of  brain,  will  prove  you  that.  And  no  man  grows  good 
by  mere  increase  of  intellectual  development.  Look 
at  the  melancholy  record  of  the  private  lives  of  many 
of  the  most  brilliant  thinkers  and  scholars.  Look  at 
the  dissoluteness  of  the  bad,  bright  times  of  Greek  or 
Roman  culture.  And  just  exactly  so  no  man  reaches 
any  high  progress  in  the  highest  life,  no  man  grows 
holy,  except  by  the  one  single  means  which  God  has 
provided  for  bringing  a  world  of  sinners  back  to  Him- 
self and  lifting  them  up  out  of  their  imspirituality  into 
the  holiness  in  which  He  Himself  resides.  As  power- 
less as  is  the  mere  training  of  the  body  to  educate  the 
mind,  or  the  culture  of  the  mind  to  reform  the  morals, 
so  utterly  hopeless  is  it  that  any  man  living  under 
God's  inevitable  laws  should  grow  by  the  mere  struggle 
of  moral  rectitude  into  that  condition  of  resemblance 
and  spiritual  nearness  to  God  which  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  a  man's  being  holy.  That  high  estate,  the 
abiding  of  the  divine  life  in  the  human  soul — you  must 
set  it  down  as  the  fii-st  truth  of  your  religion — can  be 
ever  reached  only  by  the  personal  acceptance  of  that 
means  by  which  it  was  first  and  forever  typified — the 
indwelling  of  the  Divine  in  the  human  in  the  great  rep- 
resentative miracle  of  spu'itual  history,  the  Incarnation 
of  Jesus  Christ.  That  Incarnation  is  to  be  the  image 
of  every  man's  highest  life.  As  there  in  Bethlehem  so 
constantly  in  us  the  higher  life  can  take  possession  of 
the  lower  only  by  a  miracle,  only  by  the  direct  opera- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  the  Lord :  "  Not  of  blood,  nor 
of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of 
God."    As  in  the  Christ  so  constantly  in  us  the  higher 


158  SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

life,  once  present,  takes  the  lower  utterly  under  its  con- 
trol, wields  it  with  a  supreme  despotism  for  its  own 
uses.  As  in  the  Christ  so  constantly  in  us  the  lower 
life  has  to  meet  all  dangers  and  all  agonies — the  hunger, 
the  thirst,  the  weariness,  aye,  even  the  scoiu'ging  and  the 
cross — when  the  purposes  of  the  higher  call  for  it ;  for 
this  new  life  into  which  he  enters  who  is  "  born  again," 
though  just  as  intimately  and  wonderfully  connected 
with  the  old  physical  and  intellectual  life  which  the  man 
hved  before  he  was  converted,  is  just  as  distinct  from 
it,  just  as  distinctly  superior  to  it,  as  was  the  divine 
nature  to  the  human  nature  in  our  Lord. 

I  do  not  forget,  when  I  thus  speak  of  the  spiritual 
life,  wherever  a  man  attains  it,  as  surpassing  and  sub- 
jecting all  inferior  hves  within  him,  that  nevertheless 
those  inferior  lives  are  necessary  to  make  him  a  perfect 
man.  I  believe  most  fully  that  a  man  will  be  a  better 
Christian  if  his  body  is  healthy  and  his  mind  is  wise 
and  his  morals  are  correct.  It  certainly  is  true  about 
the  body.  Take  two  spirits  equally  pure  and  holy,  and 
lodge  one  in  the  frame  of  a  strong  man  whose  full 
blood  is  only  waiting  for  some  high  impulse  to  do 
heroic  acts,  and  house  the  other  in  some  poor,  broken- 
down  body  that  vexes  and  restrains  its  high  inhabi- 
tant with  useless  limbs  and  the  weariness  of  everlasting 
aches,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  development  of 
the  former  will  be  into  a  more  robust  and  hearty  pietj'' 
than  the  sickly  growth  of  the  other  ever  can  attain.  I 
believe  in  muscular  Christianity  as  far  as  that.  And  I 
believe  we  ought  to  know  more  about  and  think  more 
about  the  necessity  of  a  perfect  body  to  a  perfect  man. 
If  by  any  means  a  man  can  help  it  he  has  religiously 


SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  159 

no  right  to  be  dyspeptic  or  deformed.  Here  the  phy- 
sician becomes  an  evangelist  with  a  most  specific  and 
responsible  work  to  do.  And  just  so  about  the  mind  ; 
the  time  is  gone  by  when  men  talked  as  if  ignorance  and 
want  of  culture  were  necessary  prerequisites  to  piety. 
As  Christianity  advances  all  that  false  idea  must  and 
will  be  more  and  more  utterly  abandoned,  and  the 
larger  doctrine  take  its  place  that  all  tiiith  is  God's 
truth,  and  that  every  truth  a  man  can  learn,  no  matter 
how  far  off  it  seems,  down  to  the  natural  history  of  in- 
sects and  the  rule  of  three,  may  by  some  divine  con- 
nection minister  to  his  growth  in  spiritual  grace.  And 
another  day  has  gone  by,  too — the  day  in  which  men 
used  to  defame  morality  for  the  sake  of  building  up 
religion.  As  the  distinctive  character  of  true  religion 
rises  we  see  it  builds  itself  infinitely  past  our  ken  with- 
out degrading  any  other  culture.  I  will  not  say,  as  you 
often  hear  it  said  so  paradoxically,  that  an  immoral  man 
is  easier  to  convert  than  a  moral  man.  Conversion  is 
so  hard  and  so  easy  a  thing  at  once — so  infinitely  hard 
for  us,  so  infinitely  easy  for  the  Spu'it  of  God — that  I 
do  not  believe  we  can  tell  much  about  which  are  the 
hardest  and  which  are  the  easiest  conversions.  But  I 
cannot  feel  a  doubt  that  of  two  men,  one  moral  and  one 
immoral,  the  man  who  takes  Christ  into  a  life  in  any 
degree  correct  grows  more  rapidly  in  the  spirit  of  his 
Master  than  another  who  takes  him  into  a  house  which 
is  not  merely  foul  within,  but  broken  down  and  run- 
ning over  with  its  foulness  at  every  loathsome  chink. 

No  !  I  accept  all  this.  I  cannot  help  it.  When  I  see 
religion  every  day  hampered  by  weak  bodies,  narrow 
minds,  and  wicked  habits,  all  of  them  defects  originat- 


160  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

ing  before  the  man  became  religious,  I  am  perfectly  sure 
that  man's  religion  would  be  truer  in  its  expressions, 
and  so  freer  for  its  growth,  if  aU  those  lower  lives 
were  perfect.  They  minister  to  this  the  highest  life  of 
aU.  But  again  we  must  insist  that  they  do  not,  they 
never  can,  create  it.  By  none  of  them  does  the  man  live. 
There  is  a  higher  life  above  them,  which  they  can  help, 
but  into  which  they  cannot  grow,  into  which  whosoever 
entereth  must  be  "  born  again."  Always  I  long  to  see 
those  lives  perfecting,  each  feeding  on  its  own  appropri- 
ated "  word  of  God."  I  rejoice  in  every  body  strength- 
ened, every  mind  enlightened,  every  fault  reformed; 
but  always  above  them  I  hear  a  higher  word,  the 
Word  of  God  Himself,  the  Christ,  the  Saviour,  and  I  do 
not  know  how  to  count  any  man  truly  living  tiU  he  has 
come  and  found  the  life  that  is  in  Him. 

I  speak  to  you  to-day  who  have  not  learned  how 
grand  and  precious  is  this  truth  of  the  superior  nature 
of  the  spiritual  life.  Why  can  ye  not  learn  that  religion 
is  a  distinct  attainment  and  demands  a  distinct  method 
of  its  own  ?  To  be  religious,  to  be  a  Christian,  means 
something  accurate  and  specific.  It  is  not  to  be  a  little 
stronger  than  the  strongest,  a  little  wiser  than  the 
wisest,  a  httle  truer  than  the  truest.  It  is  something 
more.  It  is  something  different  from  all.  It  is  to  have 
taken  up  a  new  quality  of  being,  which  God  only  gives 
through  Jesus  Christ ;  to  have  learned  ambitions  which 
the  best  wisdom  or  morality  never  dreamed  of ;  to  have 
become  the  subject  of  forces  deeper,  dealing  with  pro- 
founder  regions  of  the  nature,  than  were  ever  stiiTed 
before — all  this  accomplished  by  the  act  and  habit  of 
complete  personal  dedication,  under  the  impulse  of 


SECOND  SU>rDAY  IN  LENT.  IGl 

gratitude  and  love,  to  the  service  and  education  of  a 
personal  Master  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Let  a  plant  try  to  be  a  bird  forever  and  it  will  forever 
fail.  It  may  grow  to  be  a  very  superior  plant,  unfold 
a  lordly  beauty  to  the  wondering  sun,  but  between  it 
and  the  song  and  the  flight  and  the  nest  lies  forever 
the  gulf  that  separates  flower-life  from  bird-life  and 
never  can  be  crossed.  Let  a  man  try  to  be  a  Christian 
forever.  The  struggle  may  make  him,  I  believe  it  will 
make  him,  a  better  man ;  but  between  him  and  the 
strength  and  the  peace  and  the  love  yawns  forever  the 
gulf  that  separates  man-life  from  God-life,  and  which 
no  man  ever  yet  crossed  save  as  he  stretched  out  both 
his  helpless  hands  to  God  and  felt  a  Hand  too  powerful 
not  to  trust  clasp  them  and  lift  him,  whither  he  knew 
not,  till  lo  !  the  gulf  was  crossed  and  he  had  entered  on 
the  new  life  that  they  live  who  live  in  God. 

Do  I  need  to  tell  you  the  uses  to  which  this  truth  of 
the  subordination  of  the  lower  lives  to  the  higher  may 
be  and  has  again  and  again  been  put  ?  What  a  strength 
there  is  in  it  for  every  tempted  man  who  has  to  put  some 
low  good  aside  that  he  may  go  on  to  the  better!  It  is 
the  law  of  self-sacrifice,  and  so  must  be  the  law  of  every 
worthy  life.  By  it  the  martyrs  stood  while  the  flames 
burned  away  their  outer  life  and  purified  and  made 
manifest  at  once  the  inner  truth  which  was  more  dear 
to  them.  By  it  reformers  since  the  world  began  have 
given  up  the  hope  of  popular  favor  and  worked  for 
thankless  generations  that  did  them  but  a  grudged 
honor  years  after  they  were  dead,  over  their  moldering 
bones.  By  it  the  nation  that  God  blesses  has  to  learn 
in  God's  good  time  how  to  rise  up  from  her  careless  ease 


162  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

and  put  her  easy  prosperity  away,  that  by  toilsomeness 
and  blood  she  may  mount  to  the  higher  mercies  of 
completer  freedom  and  a  profounder  loyalty.  "Man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that 
proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God  " — by  every  word, 
from  the  gentlest  to  the  severest,  that  the  eternal  lips 
know  how  to  speak ;  from  the  tenderness  of  the  God 
that  spoke  to  Hagar :  "  What  aUeth  thee,  Hagar  ?  fear 
not,"  to  the  sternness  of  the  pitiless  God  who  spoke  to 
Abraham :  "  Take  now  thy  son,  thine  only  son  Isaac, 
whom  thou  lovest,  and  offer  him  upon  one  of  the  moun- 
tains which  I  will  tell  thee  of."  Blessed  is  the  state,  the 
church,  or  the  heroic  man  that  is  strong  enough  to  put 
the  bread  away  without  a  murmur,  no  matter  how  sweet 
it  be  to  his  hungry  lips,  if  by  tasting  it  he  robs  himself 
of  any  nourishment  for  the  higher  life  that  feeds,  not 
upon  bread  alone,  but  upon  every  word  of  God. 

And  remember  this  is  not  a  doctrine  for  the  world's 
heroes  and  martyrs  only;  it  is  for  every  living  soul 
when  it  is  called  on  to  give  up  the  lower  that  it  may 
attain  the  higher  life.  It  is  for  the  man  who  has  to  give 
up  his  dollar  that  he  may  keep  his  honesty,  to  give  up 
a  doubt  that  he  may  win  a  truth.  It  is  for  the  young 
man  who  has  to  give  up  a  fascinating  acquaintance  that 
he  may  keep  his  purity,  to  let  go  a  tempting  chance  of 
business  because  there  is  something  about  its  associa- 
tions that  is  going  to  degrade  his  life.  It  is  for  the  old 
man  who  has  to  give  up  the  friendship  of  a  lifetime  be- 
cause his  loyalty  to  truth  and  principle  is  worth  more 
to  him  than  his  dearest  friend ;  for  the  woman  who 
abandons  worldliness  to  serve  her  God,  who  turns  her 
back  on  fashion  and  its  wretched  littleness  that  she  may 


SECOND   SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  163 

^o  up  into  eternal  life.  It  is  for  the  minister  who  is 
tempted  to  say  smooth  things  instead  of  true  things  to 
the  people  whose  favor  he  desires ;  for  the  people  who 
are  readier  to  have  a  church  that  is  popular  and  always 
full  than  one  where,  fuU  or  empty,  no  truth  shall  go 
unspoken,  no  righteousness  unpraised,  and  no  sin  un- 
rebuked.  Wherever  truth  and  interest  conflict  (and 
where  is  the  life  so  narrow  and  obscure  that  it  has  not 
furnished  many  a  battle-field  for  that  eternal  strug- 
gle ?) ;  wherever  the  desire  to  be  popular,  to  be  rich,  to 
be  wise,  to  be  anything  else  has  to  be  cut  awaj'-  and  cast 
behind  a  man  that  he  may  go  on  unhindered  to  be  good 
and  true  and  holy,  there  the  law  of  the  martyrs  and  the 
heroes,  there  the  law  of  the  Christ,  whose  meat  was  to 
finish  His  Father's  work,  and  who  for  the  eating  that 
eternal  meat  fasted  from  the  bread  that  perisheth,  comes 
down  and  proves  itself  the  law  of  all  true  life. 

I  know  perfectly  well  that  there  is  not  a  man  or  woman 
here  that  does  not  need  this  truth  to-day.  There  is  not 
one  of  you  that  some  way  or  other  is  not  trying  to  feed 
your  higher  hves  on  that  nourishment  which  is  fit  only 
for  the  lower.  How  much  there  is  to  learn  !  You  rich 
men  have  got  to  learn  that  character  is  not  built  up  of 
gold.  "  How  hard  is  it  for  them  that  trust  in  riches  to  en- 
ter into  the  kingdom  of  God  !"  You  have  got  to  sweep 
the  dry  crusts  of  avarice  off  of  your  tables  and  heap 
them  with  the  sweet  luxury  of  charity  before  you  can 
feed  your  souls  with  the  strength  of  holiness.  God  give 
you  grace  to  do  it!  You  amiable  triflers  in  society, 
making  your  life  one  long  aspiration  after  the  applause 
and  good  will  of  triflers  like  yourselves,  you  are  fritter- 
ing your  days  and  nights  away,  and  you  dare  not  stand 


164  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN   LENT. 

up  in  God's  sight  and  even  pretend  to  have  grown  in 
high  principle  or  any  godly  grace,  feeding  on  this  straw 
that  tastes  so  sweet !  Where  should  I  stop  if  I  began  ? 
There  is  not  one  who  does  not  need  the  strength  of  God 
to  refuse  some  bread  the  devil  is  holding  out  to  him, 
that  in  the  hunger  of  his  lower  nature  he  may  feed  his 
soul  on  some  eternal  word  of  God.  May  our  Lord  give 
you  power  each  in  his  own  secret  struggle  to  be  victor. 

And  again,  what  a  truth  this  is,  not  merely  for  the 
weak  man  who  needs  strength,  but  for  the  afflicted 
man  who  wants  comfort  and  faith !  I  go  to  some  poor 
creature  and  find  him  utterly  desolate  in  his  forlorn  and 
emptied  hfe.  His  money  is  gone,  his  house  is  burned, 
his  health  is  broken,  his  friend  is  faithless,  his  chUd  is 
dead.  I  hear  him  cry  out  in  his  bitterness,  "Yesterday 
my  table  was  heaped  up ;  now  where  shall  my  hungry 
mouth  find  its  crumb  to  feed  on  ? "  What  shall  I  say  to 
him  ?  What  can  I  say  but  in  some  form  or  other  just 
this  truth :  "  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God  "  ? 
You  say  God  promised  to  supply  your  needs,  and  where 
is  His  provision  ?  Yes,  but  He  loves  best  to  supply  your 
highest,  not  your  lowest  needs,  and  it  is  the  law  of  all 
His  universe  that  it  is  better  for  the  lower  life  to  hun- 
ger, if  thereby  the  higher  can  be  fed  and  made  to  grow. 

Here  again  this  is  no  doctrine  for  great  sorrows  and 
bereavements  only.  Every  time  that  God  appUes  His 
law  and  we  shrink  under  it,  every  time  that  He  deprives 
the  body  that  He  may  feed  the  soul,  this  is  His  call  for 
us  to  find  a  consolation  in  the  certainty  that  on  some 
word  of  God,  if  not  on  the  bread  that  my  ignorance  is 
craving,  I  may,  if  I  wiU  just  be  obedient,  be  fed  into  an 


SECOND  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  IGO 

unexpected  strength.  This  is  the  way  the  saints  were 
made ;  this  is  the  way  that  everywhere,  where  faithful 
souls  are  suffering,  the  gradual  gloiy  of  new  sainthoods 
is  gathering  now.  The  world  falls  off  from  them,  is 
torn  away  from  them,  it  may  be,  but  its  very  desertion 
leaves  them  clearer  in  the  Hght,  more  utterly  within 
the  influence  of  God.  New  aspirations  take  the  heart 
made  empty  of  the  old,  and  the  soul  that  once  clung 
to  man  flies  in  the  hopefulness  of  hopelessness  to  God, 
and  finds  no  path  too  hard  that  leads  its  new  ambition 
up  to  Him.  It  learns  a  new  prayer  that  grows  to  be  its 
only  prayer : 

"  Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee, 

Nearer  to  Thee ! 
E'en  though  it  be  a  cross 

That  raiseth  me, 
Still  aU  my  song  shall  be, 
Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee, 

Nearer  to  Thee  !  " 

All  that  we  have  said  to-day  starts  from  and  results 
in  the  truth  of  the  distinctive  and  separate  character  of 
the  Christian  life  above  all  others.  Let  us  come  back 
to  that  and  make  it  our  closing  lesson.  To  be  a  Chris- 
tian is  to  be  in  a  definite  and  specific  state  5  to  become 
a  Christian  is  to  undergo  a  definite  and  specific  change. 
No  previous  state  by  any  possibility  develops  into  this 
state,  no  previous  process  by  any  possibility  accom- 
plishes of  itself  this  change.  By  one  distinct  new  act 
the  man  who  never  has  been  Christ's  servant  gives 
himself  to  Christ,  and  then  he  is  a  "  new  creature,"  for 
he  has  been  "born  again." 

If  this  be  so,  then  it  follows  that  the  Christian  Church 


166  SECOND  SUNDAY  IN   LENT. 

must  have  one  very  definite  and  special  work  to  do. 
The  object  of  the  Church  is,  first  and  last  and  all  the 
time,  this  one  single  object :  just  to  save  men's  souls — 
nothing  else ;  not  to  improve  their  bodies,  not  to  inform 
their  minds,  nothing  but  just  to  tell  them  of  the  new 
life  of  holiness,  and  to  invite  them  to  enter  it  through 
the  new  and  living  way  which  the  crucified  Christ  has 
opened. 

I  am  sure  there  must  be  some  among  you  who  feel 
the  attractiveness  of  such  a  truth,  there  must  be  some 
who  are  longing  for  just  tliis  same  new  way — not  an 
old  way  that  you  have  been  trying  and  failing  in  till 
you  are  weary  of  it  and  have  no  heart  left  to  try  it  any 
longer,  but  some  experiment  by  which  you  can  start 
fresh,  throw  the  dead  past  away,  and  be  a  "new  man" 
in  the  fullness  of  your  strength.  What  shall  I  say? 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  your  wish  were  just  the  Bible  offer. 
Here  is  a  new  life  to  live — not  the  old  one  in  a  higher 
progress,  but  a  new  life,  whereon  men  enter  by  a  wholly 
new  admission.  What  you  want  is  just  what  Christ  pro- 
vides. And  there  is  no  other  way  for  your  want  to  be 
satisfied  unless  you  can  see  Him  standing  by  the  side 
of  His  cross,  pointing  you  to  its  foot,  saying,  "Leave 
your  past  there ;  let  the  dead  liury  their  dead ;  follow 
thou  Me.  It  may  be  into  the  fellowship  of  My  suffer- 
ings, but  what  of  that  ?  It  certainly  shall  be  into  the 
fellowship  of  My  glory  and  My  hohness  forevermore." 


XI. 
THIRD   SUNDAY   IN  LENT. 

"Again,  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  an  exceeding  high 
mountain,  and  showeth  Him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and 
the  glory  of  them." — Matt.  iv.  8. 

When  one  travels  in  the  Holy  Land  it  is  interesting 
for  him  to  watch  himself  and  see  which  are  the  places 
which  take  most  hold  upon  him.  Very  often,  I  think, 
such  a  one  has  found  that  it  is  not  the  places  which 
have  been  the  scenes  of  the  most  picturesque  events  in 
our  Lord's  life  so  much  as  those  which  witnessed  the  in- 
ward struggles  and  the  development  of  His  nature  into 
full  consciousness  of  itself  that  have  most  fastened  the 
spu'it  of  the  Christian  traveler.  The  hills  above  Naza- 
reth, where  Jesus  must  have  constantly  wandered  when 
He  was  a  boy ;  the  side  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  where 
He  fought  out  the  inner  battle  of  Gethsemane — both  of 
these  scenes  are  full  of  power  of  the  most  subtle  and 
imperious  sort.  And  among  all  such  scenes  none  can 
have  stronger  power  than  the  scene  of  Christ's  temp- 
tation, out  of  the  story  of  which  the  words  are  taken 
from  which  I  want  to  speak  to  you  to-day. 

Those  words  describe  a  notable  moment  in  the  Sav- 
iour's life.  Up  to  this  time  He  had  been  hardly  more 
than  a  boy.     He  had  lived  in  the  small  town  of  Naza- 

167 


168  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LEl^. 

reth.  His  mother's  household  and  the  labors  of  His 
father's  shop  had  been  His  scenery.  He  had  at  last 
come  up  to  Jerusalem  and  been  baptized  by  John.  But 
now  in  some  mysterious  way,  in  this  scene  in  the 
desert,  His  vision  opened  and  His  world  enlarged.  It 
does  not  matter  to  us  just  what  it  was  that  outwardly 
occurred.  Before  the  soul  of  Christ  the  whole  wide 
.world  lay  open.  He  saw  how  large,  how  rich,  how 
beautiful,  how  manifold  it  was.  Judea  and  Nazareth 
were  still  the  center  of  His  outlook,  but  the  world 
stretched  away  around  them  as  the  ocean  stretches  out 
away  around  the  sailor  in  his  little  boat.  Surely  it  was 
a  great  day  when  the  Saviour  of  the  world  saw  for  the 
first  time  all  the  kingdoms  and  the  glory  of  the  world 
which  He  had  come  to  save. 

Do  you  not  see  what  the  subject  is  of  which  I  wish  to 
speak  ?  In  every  vivid  young  life  as  it  grows  up  there 
comes  a  time  which  is  to  it  what  this  moment  was  in 
the  life  of  Jesus.  It  is  the  time  when  it  catches  sight 
of  the  world ;  sometimes  all  of  a  sudden,  as  if  a  traveler 
among  woods  and  country  roads  turned  a  corner  and 
in  an  instant  there  lay  before  him  the  great  city,  flash- 
ing in  the  sun ;  sometimes  very  gradually,  as  if  the 
man  walked  on  and  on,  hour  after  hour,  along  a  long 
straight  road,  with  what  seemed  at  fii'st  a  distant  flash 
of  gold  opening  hour  after  hour  into  the  splendor  of 
the  vast  metropolis.  So  does  the  young  man  in  some 
moment  or  some  period  of  his  life  come  in  sight  of  the 
great  world.  He  comes  out  of  the  guarded  seclusion 
of  his  home ;  he  presses  against  some  narrow  standard 
of  his  boyhood  until  it  bursts  and  shows  broader  stan- 
dards lying  out  beyond  it.     Ordinaiily  such  vision  of  the 


THIRD   SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  169 

world  is  involved  with  some  change  of  circumstances, 
but  the  real  essential  thing  is  in  the  heart  of  the  young 
man  himself.  Shut  a  boy  up  in  an  island  by  himself, 
let  him  grow  up  in  solitude,  and  the  time  will  surely 
come  when  his  human  heart  will  tell  him  stories  of  the 
unseen  world  of  men,  and  he  will  sit  upon  the  lonely 
rocks  and  seem  to  see  that  crowded  human  world  far 
away  across  the  unbroken  waste  of  waters.  You  re- 
member how  the  weary  spirit,  recaUing  that  experience, 
sings  in  front  of  Locksley  Hall : 

"  Make  me  feel  the  wild  pulsation  which  I  felt  before  the  strife, 
When  I  heard  mj  days  before  me  and  the  tumult  of  my  life 
Yearning  for  the  large  excitement  that  the  coming  years  would 

yield — 
Eager-hearted,  as  a  boy  when  first  he  leaves  his  father's  field, 
And  at  night,  along  the  dusky  highway  near  and  nearer  drawn, 
Sees  in  heaven  the  light  of  London  flaming  like  a  dreary  dawn, 
And  his  spirit  leaps  within  him  to  be  gone  before  him  then. 
Underneath  the  light  he  looks  at,  in  among  the  throngs  of 


Do  not  these  words  somehow  recall  to  us  the  young 
man  taken  up  into  the  high  mountain  and  shown  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them  f  It  is 
all  very  vague — it  must  be.  That  traveler  upon  the 
road  to  London,  all  aglow  with  its  vision,  does  not 
trace  how  every  street  and  alley  runs  in  the  great  city, 
nor  see  how  the  bricks  are  laid  in  every  man's  back 
yard.  It  is  the  "light  of  London,"  not  the  lamp  in 
this  or  that  shop-window,  that  he  sees.  And  so  it  is 
the  world,  all  vague,  mysterious,  and  wonderful,  which 
the  spirit  of  the  young  man  sees  from  his  mountain, 
not  this  or  that  which  is  happening  in  the  world.     It 


170  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

is  the  world  all  together,  the  world  of  tumultuous,  roar- 
ing, awful,  fascinating  human  life,  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  and  the  glory  of  them — this  is  what  he  sees. 
There  is  a  special  value,  a  special  contribution  to  the 
total  experience  and  character  of  a  man,  in  the  years 
which  hold  that  vision — the  years  when  the  narrow- 
ness of  childhood  is  broken,  but  the  absorption  in  the 
details  of  Mf  e  has  not  yet  begun ;  the  years  wherein  the 
young  man  is  catching  sight  of  the  world.  Blessed  is 
he  who  keeps  those  years  pure  and  lofty. 

In  spite  of  the  vagueness  which  necessarily  belongs 
to  this  first  sight  of  the  great  world  it  is  still  possible 
to  discriminate  so  far  as  to  see  in  what  different  ways 
this  enlargement  of  life  will  come  to  different  men. 
Let  me  point  out  a  few.  To  one  man  it  will  come  sim- 
ply as  a  sight  of  the  possible  greatness  of  experience, 
the  mere  surprised  realization  of  how  much  there  is 
which  may  happen  to  a  man.  The  boy's  life  has  been 
all  safe  and  guarded.  Little  has  come  to  him  in  any 
way.  He  has  di-ifted  about,  as  it  were,  in  a  little  pond, 
striking  forever  the  same  shores,  repeating  over  and 
over  again  the  same  experiences.  By  and  by  the  time 
of  larger  Adsion  comes.  Some  new  thing  happens;  a 
gi'eat  sorrow,  a  great  task,  starts  up  like  a  mountain  in 
his  way.  If  he  climbs  the  mountain,  instead  of  being 
crushed  under  it,  he  looks  al^road  from  it  on  the  great 
world  beyond.  The  pond,  as  it  were,  breaks  open  and 
becomes  a  stream,  flowing  he  knows  not  to  what  end. 
Something  almost  terrible,  yet  something  which  tests 
a  man  and  brings  out  all  the  latent  largeness  which  is 
in  him,  lies  in  such  a  moment.  The  heart  beats  high. 
The  breath  comes  fast.    How  long  and  broad  and  deep 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  171 

life  is  !  What  wondrous  things  may  happen  before  the 
end  is  reached,  and  the  man,  tired  hut  enriched,  passes 
out  through  the  gate  of  death  into  the  yet  larger  hfe 
beyond ! 

All  this  specializes  and  so  intensifies  itself  as  the 
young  man  chooses  some  particular  occupation  or  study. 
Perhaps  he  goes  into  business.  Think  of  him  as  lie 
stands  there  upon  the  borders  of  the  business  world, 
just  far  enough  into  it  to  feel  himself  a  part  of  it ;  not 
so  wrapped  yet  in  its  details  that  he  cannot  feel  the  gi*eat 
general  magnificence  of  its  entire  mass  and  movement. 
He  must  be  dull  indeed  if  he  does  not  feel  something  of 
the  inspiration  which  so  many  ardent  young  merchants 
in  every  age,  in  every  land,  have  felt.  The  sight  of  the 
thousands  of  enthusiastic,  toiling  men,  the  sound  of 
clashing  wills  and  roaring  passions,  the  sudden  spring 
or  slow  upheaval  of  enormous  fortunes,  the  ring  of 
powers  happy  in  their  energetic  and  successful  use,  the 
constant  suggestion  of  danger,  the  constant  need  of 
courage,  and,  over  all,  like  a  gi'eat  light  in  the  sky  from 
a  city  blazing  with  a  million  lamps,  the  sense  of  the 
gi-owing  happiness  and  the  growing  goodness  of  human- 
ity as  the  result,  in  spite  of  a  thousand  drawbacks,  of 
this  great  world  of  commerce — this  is  the  vision  which 
ought  to  gi'eet  the  young  business  man  at  the  beginning 
of  his  business  life ;  this  is  the  way  in  which  he  sees  all 
the  kingdoms  of  this  new  world  which  he  is  entering, 
and  the  glory  of  them .' 

And  the  young  student  has  his  visions,  too — gi-eat 
outlooks  into  mysterious  sciences :  the  heavens  above, 
and  the  earth  beneath,  and  the  waters  under  the  earth, 
all  teeming  with  possible  knowledge ;  the  wisdom  of  the 


172  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

wise  men  and  the  wisdom  which  no  man  has  yet  been 
wise  enough  to  know.  Alas  for  him  who  sits  down  to 
his  higher  school  and  college  life  with  no  such  new  sense 
of  the  greatness  of  the  world  of  knowledge,  solemnly, 
beautifully,  opening  in  his  soul ! 

Or  public  life !  You  step  into  some  trifling  public 
office  and  try  to  do  its  work.  You  perform  the  first 
duty  of  the  fundamental  office  and  cast  your  vote.  You 
are  within  sight,  as  you  do  that,  of  all  the  grandeur  of 
government  the  wide  world  over :  of  the  tidal  rise  and 
fall  of  dynasties,  of  the  great  shepherds  of  men,  of  the 
despotisms,  of  the  struggles  of  the  people,  of  the  slow 
birth  of  hberty,  of  all  the  thrones  and  parhaments  and 
battle-fields. 

Or  rehgious  life  !  You  say  your  prayer  of  consecra- 
tion, and  lo !  as  you  pray,  the  curtain  Hfts.  All  that 
prayer  means,  all  that  God  might  do,  aU  that  God  ever 
has  done,  for  man,  all  the  struggles  of  man's  nature 
after  God,  all  the  faiths,  all  the  speculations,  all  the 
superstitions,  lie  before  you.  The  imperfect  religions, 
the  temples,  the  synagogues,  the  cathedrals,  the  altars 
to  the  unknown  gods,  the  deep  thoughts  and  hopes  and 
suspicions,  and  then  Jerusalem  and  Jesus  Christ  and  all 
the  Christian  history — all  these  stand  round  the  young 
disciple  praying  his  first  i)rayer. 

You  see,  then,  what  I  mean.  The  larger  aspects  of 
his  general  human  life  and  of  his  special  work  in  life 
open  to  a  man  at  times  as  they  opened  to  Jesus.  To  all 
earnest  souls,  as  to  His  soul,  come  times  when  to  them 
are  shown  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory 
of  them. 

And  then  we  turn  back  to  our  text  again,  for  there  is 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  173 

something  else  there  which  we  have  not  looked  at  yet. 
In  St.  Matthew's  story  of  the  temptation,  from  which 
our  text  is  taken,  it  is  said  that  it  was  "  the  devil "  who 
took  Jesus  up  into  a  high  mountain  and  showed  Him 
the  greatness  of  the  world.  Does  that  part  of  the  story 
also  find  its  correspondence  in  our  lives?  Is  it  the 
devil,  the  spirit  of  eartldiness,  the  spirit  of  evil,  which 
holds  up  before  men's  eyes  these  larger  \dsions  of  life  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking  ?  I  think  we  cannot  really 
answer  that  question  until  we  go  back  and  take  in  the 
whole  of  the  story  of  our  Lord's  temptation.  This  visit 
to  the  lofty  mountain  was  only  a  part  of  Christ's  ex- 
perience in  the  wilderness.  And  at  the  beginning  of 
the  whole  you  remember  how  it  is  written,  "  Then  was 
Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  be 
tempted  of  the  devil."  I  think  that  that  verse  makes  the 
matter  plain  and  suggests  the  deepest  truth  concernmg 
our  own  life.  The  larger  government  of  our  life  is  not 
in  the  devil's  hands,  but  in  the  hands  of  the  Spuit  of 
God.  AU  that  the  devil  can  do  to  us  he  can  do  only 
within  the  great  fact  that  we  are  God's  childi*en  and  that 
God  holds  us  in  His  unforgetting  hands.  We  need  not 
go  into  the  devil's  wilderness  at  all  unless  God's  Spirit 
takes  us  there.  If  God's  Spirit  does  take  us  there  He 
will  not  turn  round  and  go  away  and  leave  us.  He  will 
stay  with  us  and  have  the  final  power  over  our  lives 
— a  power  which,  if  we  do  not  hinder  it,  may  not  save 
us  always  from  pain,  but  will  certainly  always  save  us 
fi'om  sin. 

I  would  fain  hope  that  as  I  so  state  what  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  doctrine  of  life  and  of  the  influences  which 
are  at  work  upon  it  which  this  verse  involves,  your  own 


174  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

hearts  might  recognize  it  from  your  own  experiences. 
Have  you  not  known,  many  a  time,  that  there  were  two 
powers  at  work  upon  your  Hfe — one  larger  and  one 
smaller,  one  superior  and  one  inferior  ?  I  seem  to  live 
within  two  spheres — one  close  upon  my  actions  and 
my  thoughts,  the  other  wider,  vaster,  outside  this  inner 
sphere,  and  the  real  master  of  it.  My  pains  and  plea- 
sures, the  actual  circumstances  and  incidents  of  my 
life,  the  world,  kindly  or  hostile,  as  it  may  please  to  be, 
can  govern.  But  the  real  thing  I  am — let  me  determine 
that  that  shall  be  God's,  and  there  is  no  power  in  the 
universe  that  can  pluck  it  away  from  Him.  To  the 
man  who,  as  he  goes  on  living,  becomes  more  and  more 
aware  that  he  is  in  the  power  of  the  world,  but  also  be- 
comes more  and  more  aware  that  he  is  in  the  power  of 
the  world  only  within  the  power  of  God ;  that  God  put 
him  where  he  is,  and  is  always  ready  to  sustain  him 
there — to  such  a  man  do  not  these  words  deeply  de- 
scribe his  own  daily  life :  *'  Led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the 
wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil "  ? 

Apply  this  to  the  vision  of  the  greatness  of  life  on 
which  we  have  been  dwelhng.  It  is  the  devil  who 
shows  it  to  us,  and  therefore  it  is  full  of  temptation — 
temptation  to  dismay,  to  flippancy,  to  cowardice,  to 
pride.  But  it  is  God  who  carries  us  where  the  devil 
can  show  it  to  us.  Therefore  it  is  full  of  glorious  op- 
portunity— opportunity  of  aspiration,  of  enlargement, 
of  humility,  of  trust.  The  times  of  bursting  visions  are 
the  devil's  hour,  and  they  are  the  hour  of  the  Spirit,  too. 
Then,  when  the  world  grew  big  around  them,  men  have 
given  themselves  up  to  Satan  or  have  given  themselves 
up  to  God.    Then,  when  the  greatness  of  life  confronts 


THIRD   SUNDAY  EN  LENT.  175 

the  soul,  then  (oh,  how  the  thresholds  of  our  stores  and 
colleges  and  churches  are  strewn  with  the  corpses  of 
those  who  were  ruined,  and  are  marked  with  the  shining 
footprints  of  those  who  passed  on  to  highest  things!) 
— then,  when  the  greatness  of  life  confronts  the  soul, 
then  is  the  time  when  the  soul  is  lost  or  saved. 

And  what  decides  whether  it  shall  be  ruin  or  salva- 
tion ?  We  may  not  answer  wholly,  for  the  individual 
will  which  lies  behind  every  fortune  and  decision  of  our 
Hves  is  too  important  for  us  to  leave  out,  and  too  sub- 
tle for  us  to  trace  in  all  its  workings.  But  one  thing, 
clearly,  we  may  say :  the  power  which  the  larger  vision 
of  the  world  will  have  over  a  man  will  depend  prima- 
rily upon  the  kind  of  religion  which  is  in  him  when  that 
vision  breaks  upon  him.  And  that  is  only  another  way 
of  saying  that  it  will  depend  upon  what  sort  of  man 
he  is.  For  a  man's  religion,  if  it  be  real,  is  not  what  a 
man  holds,  but  what  he  is.  See,  then,  whether  I  am  not 
right.  A  boy  or  man  comes  to  one  of  these  enlarge- 
ment places.  All  that  I  described  takes  place  for  him. 
The  world  grows  great  around  him.  Suppose,  then, 
that  what  he  calls  his  religion  has  been  of  the  sort  of 
which  so  many  men's  religion  is;  suppose  that  it  has 
been  selfish  and  that  it  has  been  formal ;  suppose  this 
man  or  boy  has  always  thought  of  the  service  of  God 
as  something  which  was  to  be  done  in  order  that  he 
might  be  saved  from  suffering — something  wliich  God 
would  punish  him  if  he  did  not  do,  and  also  something 
which  consisted  in  a  set  of  habits,  in  certain  special  out- 
ward actions  which  he  must  not  omit  to  do.  There  is 
a  thing  called  a  religion  which  never  gets  further  than 
those  two  ideas.    And  then  suppose  that  the  great 


176  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

world  enlarges  itself  in  vision  round  a  man  with  a  r€ 
ligion  such  as  that.  What  power  has  his  religion  to 
make  him  equal  to  the  enlarged,  enhghtened  world? 
His  little  idea  of  personal  safety  goes  all  to  pieces  in 
the  midst  of  this  vast  view  of  how  great  the  world  is, 
and  of  what  great  things  God  is  doing  in  it.  Who  is 
he,  that  there  should  be  a  compact  of  insurance  between 
his  soul  and  God  ?  And  the  set  of  habits,  whether  of 
thought  or  action,  within  which  he  has  intrenched  him- 
self has  not  such  flexibility  as  to  take  in  this  larger  life. 
So  they  fail  him  and  he  has  no  protection.  The  little 
boat  breaks  and  is  sunk  on  this  great  ocean.  It  was  fit 
only  for  the  quiet  river  where  the  life  has  been  peace- 
fully lived  thus  far.  Oh,  of  how  many  shipwrecks  this 
is  the  whole  story !  How  the  shore  where  youth  and 
manhood,  childhood  and  manhood,  meet  is  strewn  with 
the  ruins  of  what  once  seemed  to  be  religious  convic- 
tions and  religious  resolutions,  which  all  broke  up  into 
fragments  the  moment  that  they  came  in  sight  of  the 
immensity  of  life !  Sometimes,  when  I  see  the  good 
children  trained  in  some  selfish  and  formal  religiousness 
hurrying  on  to  the  time  when  the  devil  must  certainly 
show  them  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory 
of  them,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  I  saw  a  great  company  of 
bright-faced  boys  and  girls  hurrying  down  with  their 
toy  boats  in  their  hands  to  the  ocean's  edge,  expecting 
to  get  into  them  and  sail  over  the  Atlantic  to  Europe. 
They  will  never  get  through  the  fringe  of  surf  on  the 
sea-shore.  The  sight  of  their  hopeless  life  is  infinitely 
sad  and  pathetic. 

There  is  a  religion  which  is  wholly  different  from 
this.     It  is  entirely  unselfish  and  it  is  profoundly  real. 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  177 

Down  at  its  base  there  is  the  most  earnest  love  for  God 
and  the  most  complete  conviction  of  His  love  for  us. 
His  service  is  a  joy  and  delight.  And  joj^  and  delight 
are  never  formal,  but  are  of  the  very  essence  and  sub- 
stance of  the  man  himself.  Let  this  religion  stand  face 
to  face  with  the  enlarged  vision  of  life.  This  man  is  all 
wrapped  up  in  God.  His  yoimg  heart  beats  and  throbs 
to  see  God  glorified  and  to  do  something  for  His  glory. 
The  little  world  where  he  has  lived  thus  far  has  seemed 
too  small  for  all  that  he  wanted  to  do  for  his  Father. 
Now  let  the  world  enlarge.  Let  science  open  all  her 
shining  fields.  Let  commerce  turn  the  ke}'  of  locked- 
up  lands.  Let  the  winds  come  laden  with  the  sound  of 
hymns  which  faithful  souls  are  singing  in  the  dark  of 
blind  religions.  You  cannot  make  the  world  too  large 
and  manifold  for  this  man's  God.  His  rehgion  really 
is  for  God,  not  for  himself ;  therefore  the  largeness  of 
life  does  not  bewilder  and  dismay,  but  satisfies  it.  The 
soul  takes  that  which  the  de\al  shows  it,  and  reads  divine 
meanings  in  it  and  makes  divine  uses  of  it,  and  waves 
aside  the  dark  guide,  while  it  passes  forward  into  the 
light  on  which  that  guide  has  opened  for  it  the  door. 

Oh,  how  good  it  is  when  sometimes  one  sees  that! 
O  my  dear  friends,  it  is  a  terrible  thing  v/hen  one's 
religion  is  too  small  for  the  world,  and  is  always  leav- 
ing great  parts  of  the  world's  life  unaccounted  for,  un- 
illuminated,  and  is  always  dreading  to  have  the  world 
made  any  larger,  lest  this  religion  shall  seem  even  more 
meager  and  insufficient.  But  it  is  a  great  thing  when 
the  world  is  too  small  for  one's  religion,  and  the  soul's 
sense  of  the  glorj^  and  dearness  of  God  is  always  crav- 
ing larger  and  lai-ger  regions  in  which  to  range.   Then 


178  THIRD   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

welcome  all  discoveries,  all  illuminations,  all  visions  of 
the  greatness  of  the  world  of  God, 

Here,  surely,  one  may  plead  with  parents,  even  with 
those  who  are  very  conscientious  in  the  religious  train- 
ing of  their  childi'en.  You  have  taught  yoiu*  boys  and 
gu-ls  that  they  must  not  do  wrong  or  God  will  punish 
them.  You  have  taught  them  to  say  their  morning  and 
night  prayers.  You  have  brought  them  to  church,  and 
perhaps  you  rejoice  to  see  how  well  they  follow  the  ser- 
vice, how  reverently  they  kneel,  how  the  charm  of  the 
liturgy  seems  to  have  caught  their  ear.  I  have  no 
fault  to  find  with  any  of  that.  God  forbid!  But  oh, 
there  must  be  something  more  than  that,  there  must  be 
something  deeper.  The  time  will  surely  come  when, 
unless  there  be  something  else  behind  them,  the  fear 
of  future  punishment  will  fade  before  the  tremendous 
fascination  of  the  world,  and  conformity  with  religious 
habits  wiU  seem  trivial  or  slavish  beside  the  vivid  activ- 
ity of  a  life  which  summons  the  children  with  its  voice  of 
thunder.  Are  you  leading  your  children  to  know  God  ; 
to  know  God  the  Father  of  all  hf e,  the  fountain  of  all  en- 
ergetic action ;  to  know  Him  so  loftily  that  to  exist  for 
Him,  to  work  with  Him,  shall  seem  to  them  to  be  the 
glory  of  existence  ?  If  so,  then  you  are  preparing  them 
for  life.  No  matter  how  little  and  limited  then-  lives 
may  seem  to-day,  when  they  come  forth  and  behold  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth,  and  all  their  glory,  it  will  not 
distm-b  their  faith,  but  establish  it  by  seeming  to  display 
a  worthy  kingdom  for  their  King.  The  young  lawyer 
comes  in  sight  of  the  vast  complexity  of  human  inter- 
ests; the  young  doctor  comes  in  sight  of  the  mystery 
of  the  operations  of  the  force  of  life ;  the  young  politi- 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  179 

cian  comes  in  sight  of  the  vast  complexity  of  govern- 
ment. Do  they  know  God — know  Him  as  their  Father 
and  theii-  Friend?  If  they  do,  their  knowledge  must 
rejoice  in  this  enlarged  enlightenment.  It  is  as  if  the 
sun  liad  shone  in  a  little  box,  its  glory  beaten  back  and 
restrained  against  the  naiTOw  walls ;  but  now  the  walls 
are  broken  down,  and  all  the  wide-spread  landscape,  river 
and  field  and  hill  and  lake,  Ues  waiting  for  his  beams. 
Now  it  seems  worth  while  for  the  sun  to  shine.  So  let 
me  know  God,  and  then  every  enlargement  of  the  world 
shall  make  it  seem  more  worth  while  for  God  to  be,  and 
so  more  sure  that  God  is. 

I  speak  thus  very  earnestly  about  the  training  of  chil- 
dren for  life,  and  yet  I  would  not  make  it  seem  as  if  I 
thought  that  any  preparation  for  the  meeting  of  a  soul 
with  the  enlarged  vision  of  the  world  could  insure  the 
results  of  that  meeting.  The  coming  of  a  nature  to  its 
full  vision  is  like  the  coming  of  an  heir  to  his  inheri- 
tance. Those  who  have  trained  the  heir  from  child- 
hood ought  to  have  made  him  ready  for  the  Life  which 
he  has  got  some  day  to  live.  And  yet  no  imperfection 
of  their  training  can  excuse  the  heu*  if,  coming  into  his 
inheritance,  he  is  unfit  for  its  demands  and  turns  out 
either  a  profligate  or  a  sluggard.  And  so  I  speak  to 
parents  and  bid  them  do  all  they  can,  by  a  profound 
and  lofty  and  spiritual  training,  to  make  their  children 
ready  for  the  larger  life  which  some  day  they  wiU  have 
to  Hve.  But  then  I  turn  to  the  children,  to  those  who 
have  now  ceased  or  are  ceasing  to  be  children,  and  say 
to  them  directly,  "  Be  ye  ready !  "  Seek  in  your  Naza- 
reth homes  such  Christ-like  knowledge  of  the  Heavenly 
Father  that  when  the  windows  open  and  the  whole 


180  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

world  lies  blazing  in  your  sight  your  eager  faith  shall 
claim  it  all  for  God,  as  Christ  upon  the  mountain 
claimed  the  whole  world  for  Him  whom  He  had  learned 
to  know  was  King  of  all  of  it.  So  deeply  realize  the 
power  of  God  in  your  own  soul  that  all  the  world  shall 
seem  to  you  to  be  only  too  narrow  a  theater  for  that 
power's  operation  and  display.  The  devil  holds  up  the 
last  newty  discovered  truth.  Let  your  soul  pluck  it 
out  of  the  devil's  hand  and  make  it  God's.  The  devil 
shows  you  a  new  realm  of  living  and  says,  "  Behold  a 
new  temptation."  Let  your  soul  answer,  "  Nay,  a  new 
witness  of  my  Father  and  a  new  chance  to  grow  what 
He  would  have  me  be."  Do  you  not  see,  if  this  is 
what  the  great  vision  may  accomplish  for  you,  how  the 
very  Spirit  Himself  may  do  His  best  work  for  you  by 
leading  you  up  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the 
devil  ? 

I  do  not  want  to  draw  so  near  the  end  without  saying 
a  few  words  upon  another  aspect  of  our  subject  which 
interests  me  deeply.  I  have  spoken  thus  far  only  of 
the  individual  Uf  e  and  of  the  visions  which  come  some- 
times to  it.  But  is  not  all  that  I  have  said  true  also, 
sometimes,  of  the  world  at  large  ?  Is  it  not  true  of  the 
world  at  large  that  it,  too,  comes  to  its  great  times  of 
visions  ?  There  do  come  times  in  history — and  it  would 
seem  as  if  we  were  Uving  in  one  of  those  times  now — 
when  the  whole  outlook  of  the  world  becomes  enlarged. 
If  you  had  asked  a  thinking  man  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  what  he  supposed  would  be  the  con- 
dition of  the  world  a  hundred  years  from  then,  would 
not  his  answer  probably  have  been,  "  Not  very  different 


1 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  181 

from  what  it  is  now.  Some  changes  there  -wall  be,  no 
doubt,  but  mainly  things  are  settled,  and  the  world  will 
go  on  very  much  the  same  "  ?  Here  in  the  nineteenth 
century  ask  the  same  question,  and  can  you  imagine 
yourself  receiving  the  same  answer ?  "I  cannot  tell," 
the  person  whom  you  question  must  reply,  "but  cer- 
tainly some  broader,  deeper  things  are  coming.  Man- 
kind is  greater  than  it  has  known  itself  to  be.  I  see  in 
a  mist  and  haze — but  stiU  I  do  see — the  pinnacles  of  a 
more  glorious  city,  the  outline  of  a  larger  world."  So 
the  world  vaguely  feels  about  itself.  It  has  gone  up — 
the  Spirit  of  God  surely  sending  it,  and  yet  often  the 
devil  surely  meeting  it  there — it  has  gone  up  into  the 
mountain,  and  is  seeing  all  its  own  future  kingdoms, 
and  the  glory  of  them. 

Of  the  causes  which  have  brought  this  change  we 
must  not  stop  to  speak.  We  know  what  many  of  them 
are :  popular  liberty,  rapid  communication,  the  increase 
of  wealth,  the  wonderful  work  of  science,  the  enthusi- 
asm of  humanity — all  these  have  opened  the  world's 
eyes  and  enlarged  its  vision. 

But  this  larger- visioned  time  in  the  world's  life  de- 
mands exactly  what  we  saw  that  the  time  of  larger 
vision  in  the  life  of  the  individual  demanded — an  im- 
selfish  and  a  spiritual  faith,  I  said,  a  rehgiou  which  is 
neither  selfish  nor  formal.  This  is  what  must  make  the 
world  fit  to  go  forward  into  its  mysterious  and  mighty 
future.  On  eveiy  side  I  hear  the  breaking  of  the  selfish 
and  the  formal  creeds.  That  man  should  just  save 
himself  out  of  the  ruin  and  get  to  safety  through  some 
private  bargain  with  Omnipotence;  that  man  should 
try  to  do  by  ceremonies  and  organisations  those  things 


182  THIRD   SUNDAY  EST  LENT. 

which  of  their  very  nature  only  can  be  done  by  living 
hearts  and  wills — these  conceptions  of  religion,  once  the 
rules  of  religious  thought,  have  lost  their  power  and  can 
rule  religious  thought  no  longer.  But  the  faith  which 
forgets  its  own  salvation  as  it  labors  for  the  salvation 
of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  God ;  the  faith  wliich 
looks  for  the  salvation  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of 
God,  not  to  the  setting  up  of  hierarchies  and  the  magic 
of  ceremonies,  but  to  the  power  of  God  in  the  souls  of 
men,  to  the  new  manhood  in  Jesus  Christ — that  faith 
has  the  key  of  the  present,  and  no  conceivable  future 
can  grow  so  mighty  or  rich  as  to  outgrow  the  power  of 
that  faith. 

Because  the  Christian  faith  is  intrinsically  unselfish 
and  spiritual,  not  selfish  and  formal,  we  know  that  it 
will  prove  itself,  not  less,  but  more,  the  faith  for  all 
humanity,  as  humanity  enters  more  and  more  into  its 
great  future.  The  baser  and  meaner  parts  of  her  pres- 
ent life  the  Christian  faith  must  cast  away.  In  doing 
so  she  will  become,  not  less,  but  more,  herself;  more 
purely,  simply  Christ.  Christ,  the  revelation  of  the  un- 
speakable love  of  God,  the  utterance  of  the  yet  undis- 
played  capacity  of  man — this,  which  is  the  Christian 
faith,  no  human  progress  can  outgo,  but  every  larger 
and  richer  development  of  human,  life  must  demand  it 
with  a  more  and  more  earnest  hunger. 

Such  is  the  Christian's  assurance  of  the  future  of  his 
faith  in  the  great  world.  But  draw  the  circle  in  once 
more  and  let  me  say  one  closing  word  of  your  own  life. 
You  cannot  make  that  life  so  large  that  it  will  not  need 
Christ  or  that  Christ  will  not  satisfy  and  fill  it.     Oh,  if 


THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  183 

you  stand  to-day  where  any  new  vision  is  bui'sting 
into  sight,  if  any  hope  is  dawning,  if  any  work  is  call- 
ing you,  if  any  new  study  is  rolling  back  its  silver  doors, 
if  manhood  is  glowing  in  the  near  sky  of  your  dreams, 
if  as  you  look  out  from  any  mountain  you  are  seeing 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them,  may 
He  whose  those  kingdoms  are,  because  He  redeemed 
them  with  His  blood,  be  with  you  as  you  look  upon 
them.  By  His  strength  and  power  may  you  be  very 
consecrated  and  very  holy,  and  so  be  master  of  your 
vision.  Then  may  you  go  on  into  the  world  which  you 
discern,  and  both  make  it,  and  be  yourself  made  by  it, 
absolutely  Christ's. 


XII. 

FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

"  And  David  said  unto  Nathan,  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord. 
And  Nathan  said  unto  David,  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy 
sin;  thou  shalt  not  die." — 2  Sam.  xii.  13. 

Here  is  the  story  of  a  confession  and  a  forgiveness, 
told  with  a  compactness  that  almost  startles  us,  the  two 
are  crowded  so  closely  together.  King  David,  after  his 
great  sin  against  Uriah,  had  hardly  been  brought  to 
own  his  guilt,  had  hardly  got  the  words  of  confession 
off  his  lips,  before  the  prophet,  who  represented  before 
him  the  justice  and  authorit}^  of  God,  gave  back  the 
answer  as  if  he  had  it  all  ready  upon  his  lips  and  had 
been  waiting  for  the  chance  to  give  it.  "  I  have  sinned 
against  the  Lord."  '^  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy 
sin." 

We  talk  so  much  about  confession  and  forgiveness ; 
we  elaborate  then*  theory  so  much  5  we  see  such  intri- 
cate relations  of  the  divine  and  human  natures  involved 
in  the  transaction,  that  we  almost  unconsciously  trans- 
fer the  long  train  of  thought  into  a  long  period  of 
time.  We  feel  as  if  that  result  which  implies  so  much 
spu'itual  action  must  be  reached  only  by  a  process  of 
correspondingly  prolonged  duration.  "  To  confess  and 
be  forgiven — that  is  the  work  of  months  and  years,  of 
a  whole  lifetime,"  we  declare.    And  then  comes  in  this 

184 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  185 

» 

simple  story  of  how  the  whole  was  but  the  transaction 
of  a  moment  with  David — of  how  one  minute  he  was 
standing  obstinate  and  rebellious,  stout  in  his  sin,  and 
the  next  minute  the  whole  change  had  come  and  the 
hard  heart  was  softened  and  the  proud  will  had  bent 
and  the  sin  was  gone.  All  this  comes  in  to  remind  us 
that  the  most  intricate  moral  processes  take  but  a 
moment  to  result.  The  volcano  that  the  chemistry  of 
years  has  been  preparing  breaks  into  eruption  in  an 
hour.  The  blossom  that  the  patient  plant  has  been  de- 
signing for  a  century  bursts  into  flower  in  a  single  night. 
And  so  the  reconcibation  of  a  soul  to  God,  which  it  has 
been  the  labor  of  the  ages  to  make  possible,  which 
dates  for  its  conception  back  to  the  dateless  time  when 
the  Lamb  was  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
comes  to  its  completion  in  a  period  too  short  to  mea- 
sure, in  the  sudden  meeting  of  a  soul  filled  with  peni- 
tence and  a  God  filled  with  mercy. 

To-day  I  wish  to  speak  to  you  of  the  true  natui-e  of 
the  confession  and  forgiveness  of  sin.  But  since  we 
must  find  on  unfolding  it  that  the  whole  process  is  made 
up  of  many  parts,  and  so  may  get  this  wrong  idea 
about  the  time  it  requires,  I  would  guard  myself  at  the 
outset  by  this  story.  The  whole  is  but  a  moment's  work. 
Men,  making  theii*  systems,  cast  out  the  notion  of  an 
instantaneous  conversion.  If  conversion  means  turn- 
ing from  bad  to  good,  from  self  to  God,  lo,  here  is  cer- 
tainly an  instantaneous  conversion.  Because  the  quick 
chemistries  of  grace  take  our  slow  study  a  lifetime — 
nay,  an  eternity — to  understand,  let  us  not  forget  that 
it  takes  God  but  a  moment  to  work  their  beautiful  com- 
binations and  create  the  strange  new  life  whose  power 


186  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

is  folded  up  within  them.  I  say  it  boldly  and  fully : 
you  may  be  converted  now  and  here,  as  you  sit  in  church. 
Here  and  now  you  may  confess  your  sins  and  be  for- 
given and  start  a  better  life.  Oh,  if  God  would  only 
grant  that  you  might !  It  did  not  take  David  any 
longer.  At  least  keep  in  mind  that  it  is  possible  while 
I  try  to  explain  to  you  in  full  what  the  true  nature  of 
confession  is. 

What  is  it  to  confess  one's  sin  ?  I  think  that  the  com- 
plete act  includes  four  parts,  all  of  which  are  necessary, 
the  absence  of  any  one  of  which  makes  the  act  incom- 
plete. In  order  to  make  the  matter  plainer  let  us  talk, 
not  about  sin  in  general,  but  about  some  special  sin — 
say  the  sin  of  selfishness.  I  select  this  sin  for  several 
reasons :  first,  because  it  is  the  commonest  sin  in  lives 
not  openly  vicious ;  second,  because  it  is  the  one  least 
easily  detected  and  confessed ;  and  third,  because  in  its 
large  scope  it  includes  and  embraces  every  other  sin. 
What  is  necessary,  then,  for  a  selfish  man  reaUy  and 
truly  to  confess  his  selfishness  ? 

1.  To  own  that  he  has  done  selfish  things.  That  is 
the  fii'st  step  to  be  taken.  That  is  the  first  struggle. 
To  get  at  the  plain  facts ;  to  set  out  in  their  array  the 
long  line  of  acts  that  have  not  been  done  from  any 
higher  motive  than  the  mere  desire  for  one's  own  per- 
sonal comfort  or  advantage.  Even  this  is  not  easy. 
The  acts  know  their  own  guiltiness  and  flee  behind  aU 
kinds  of  shelter  to  escape  scrutiny ;  and  the  man  who 
is  really  bent  upon  discovering  and  confessing  them 
has  to  seize  hold  of  their  reluctance  with  a  strong  hand 
and  force  them  out.  Are  you  bent  on  finding  your  own 
selfishness  ?  First  of  aU,  you  must  not  let  the  occasional 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  187 

xiuseliish  things  that  you  have  done,  the  few  brilliant 
days  when  you  can  recall  some  generous  deed  of  self- 
sacrifice — you  must  not  let  the  luster  of  such  rare  excep- 
tions, all  the  more  lustrous  from  their  very  rareuess, 
hide  from  your  view  the  constant  tenor  of  your  living, 
which  has  been  made  up  of  things  in  which  your  neigh- 
boi^s  good  has  had  no  share  of  influence.  And  then  you 
must  not  let  yourself  be  blinded  by  the  specious  sophis- 
try which  tells  you  that  these  selfish  acts  of  yours  were 
not  entu'ely  selfish,  because  in  some  remote  effect  of 
them  they  have  brought  some  good  to  some  fellow- 
man.  Very  possibty  they  have.  Hardly  any  deed  that 
is  not  essentially  and  necessarily  bad  can  help  result- 
ing in  some  indirect  and  distant  good.  Your  self -indul- 
gences may  have  in  some  way  benefited  others ;  but  if 
you  had  not  this  in  view,  if  you  did  not  pm-pose  and 
intend  it,  as  you  know  you  did  not,  then  the  ultimate 
effects  of  the  deeds  do  not  affect  then-  character.  They 
were  selfish  and  only  selfish.  You  must  begin  by  sweep- 
ing aside  eveiything  that  hides  them,  and  letting  them 
stand  fairly  out.  Be  honest  first,  and  when  the  great 
procession  of  a  life  lived  only  for  your  own  indulgence 
— not  dissolute,  not  malignant,  not  violent  or  outra- 
geous in  any  way,  only  selfish  through  and  through ;  just 
exactly  such  a  life  as  you  would  have  lived  if  you  had 
come  into  the  world  forbidden  to  do  anything  for  God 
or  f  eUow-man,  and  only  by  an  occasional  irresistible  im- 
pulse breaking  over  the  law  to  serve  either — when  such 
a  procession  of  life  marches  round  and  round  before 
the  inexorable  honesty  of  your  self-examination,  confes- 
sion will  begin  and  reach  its  first  stage  in  the  assured 
conviction  of  the  fact,  "  I  am  a  selfish  creature." 


188  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

2.  Another  struggle  will  come  as  a  man  passes  on  to 
the  second  stage,  which  is  the  full  acknowledgment  of 
the  true  moral  character  of  such  a  life.  Once  convinced 
that  he  is  selfish,  a  soul,  with  more  or  less  conscious- 
ness of  the  sophistry  that  it  is  using,  almost  always  sets 
to  work  to  feel  that  selfishness  is  not  wrong,  but  right. 
"  Very  weU,"  it  says,  "  I  am  selfish,  I  do  live  for  myself ; 
but  what  then  ?  Whom  should  I  live  for  ?  Is  not  my 
own  interest  and  good  my  first  care?  Who  will  take 
care  of  me  if  I  do  not  take  care  of  myself  ?  Must  not 
charity  begin  at  home  ?  Is  not  this  the  way  the  world 
is  meant  to  work,  that  every  man  should  nurse  his  own 
interests,  and  so,  by  the  development  of  each,  they  all 
should  grow  ?  Is  not  mankind  meant  to  rise  to  its  per- 
fection as  a  flock  of  birds  rises,  each  pair  of  hurrjdng 
wings  moved  by  its  own  fear  of  danger  or  hope  of  gain, 
without  consideration  of  the  others,  the  result  being  that 
the  whole  solid  flock  rises  together  and  moves  like  one 
great  cloud  of  the  sky  ?  Is  it  not  best  that  each  should 
care  for  himself?  And  so,  selfish  as  I  am,  is  not  my 
selfishness  a  vii'tue,  instead  of  a  sin?"  Unstated, 
vaguely  felt,  this  is  the  acted  theory  of  thousands.  No 
man  can  possibly  confess  till  first  he  casts  this  fallacy 
entirely  away.  *'  It  is  wrong  to  live  to  myself ;  it  is  not 
the  design  of  life."  Around  him  he  must  hear  a  great 
long  wail  of  human  suffering,  rising  and  falling,  now 
wilder  and  now  weaker,  but  never  dying  utterly  away 
— the  ceaseless  claim  of  needy  humanity  to  be  helped 
by  the  humanity  that  has  abundance.  More  quiet,  but 
not  less  pathetic,  he  must  also  hear  the  longing  appeal 
of  what  seem  the  happiest  and  fullest  hearts  for  sym- 
pathy in  their  joy  as  others  seek  it  in  their  sorrow.    Let 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  189 

Ms  ears  open  to  the  appeals,  and  his  conscience  must 
open  too.  He  will  see  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  shut 
himself  away  from  those  whose  life  is  one  with  his ;  nay, 
that  no  man  has  a  right  to  do  any  act  unless  he  sees 
that  some  one  else  will  be  the  better  or  the  happier  for 
it  as  well  as  he.  He  will  see  that  selfishness  is  wicked, 
and  begin  to  be  disgusted  at  his  life,  so  fuU  of  it.  He 
will  add  to  the  acknowledgment  of  the  act  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  act's  moral  character,  and  his  confes- 
sion wiU  be,  not  merely,  "  I  have  been  selfish,"  but  "  I 
have  sinned." 

3.  Then  the  selfish  man  passes  on  to  the  third  step  of 
his  confession,  which  is  the  acknowledgment  that  the 
sin  he  has  committed  is  an  offense  against  God.  Here 
is  the  first  place  where  religion  necessarily  begins.  All 
up  to  this  point  may  be  wholly  unreligious.  But  the 
confession  must  be  made  to  some  one.  What  is  the 
authority  which  has  been  violated  by  these  acts  of  yours, 
which  you  have  decided  against  as  being  selfish  ?  Is  it 
just  the  natural  authority  of  the  rights  of  your  fellow- 
men — some  human  claim  which  they  have  upon  your 
sjTnpathy  and  help  ?  I  think  not.  I  do  not  see  that 
it  is  possible  to  show  that,  besides  the  right  that  every 
man  has  not  to  be  injured  by  his  neighbors,  there  is 
another  claim  by  which  he  can  complain  if  his  neigh- 
bors do  not  go  out  of  their  way  to  help  him.  Is  it,  then, 
some  abstract  law  or  principle  of  the  mutual  harmonies 
of  universal  life  against  which  the  selfish  man  sins,  to 
which  he  must  confess  ?  Surely  no  obedience  to  such 
an  abstraction — which,  after  all,  is  only  a  generahza- 
tion,  an  induction  of  the  man's  OAvn  mind — can  bind  a 
man's  hot  passions  from  their  self-indulgence,  or  bend 


190  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

his  proud  head  in  penitent,  confession  of  wrong-doing. 
What  then  ?  The  law  must  come  from  God.  We  must 
be  deeply,  keenly  conscious  that  every  time  we  have 
done  a  selfish  act  we  have  broken  His  distinct  command- 
ment. We  must  have  so  entire  a  sense  of  how  utterly 
He  is  love  that  we  shall  see  every  unloving  thing  that 
we  have  ever  done  to  be  a  direct  insult  to  His  nature. 
We  must  keep  our  hearts  before  the  spectacle  of  the 
Eternal  Unselfishness,  "  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,"  till  its  great  argument  grows  to  be 
the  source  of  our  responsibility  and  the  gi-ound  of  our 
condemnation.  ''  If  He  so  loved  us,  we  ought  also  to 
love  one  another."  The  new  commandment  must  con- 
vict us.  We  must  teach  our  eye  to  trace  up  the  threads 
of  accountability  from  all  our  selfish  deeds  and  see  them 
meeting  and  held  fast  in  the  one  great  hand  of  the 
great  Judge  who  sits  upon  the  throne,  and  we  must 
bow  under  the  shadow  of  His  hand  and  confess  our  sin 
to  Him. 

No  one  knows  till  he  has  really  thus  confessed  how 
great  the  relief  is  of  a  recognition  of  this  sole  respon- 
sibility to  God.  We  mount  above  our  fellow-men  and 
their  judgment-seats.  We  leave  their  puny  criticisms 
far  below  us.  They  may  be  right  in  blaming  us — no 
doubt  they  are.  But  past  their  blame  the  very  magni- 
tude of  our  guilt  exalts  us  to  a  higher  judgment-seat. 
The  soul,  fuU  of  God's  power  and  love  at  once,  is  not 
satisfied  to  utter  itself  to  less  than  Him.  It  must  cry 
as  David  did  in  that  Fifty-first  Psalm,  which  he  wi-ote 
about  this  same  crime  touching  Uriah  :  "Against  Thee, 
Thee  only,  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  Thy 
sight."    In  one  word,  it  must  be  able  to  complete  the 


FOURTH   SirNDAY  IN  LENT.  191 

whole  confession  of  our  text,  and  say,  not  merely,  "  I 
have  sinned/'  but  "  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord." 

4.  And  what  more  is  there  in  the  true  confession  of 
selfishness  ?  Only  one  thing,  I  think,  and  that  is  the 
acknowledgment  that  the  selfish  acts  which  we  confess 
are  representations  and  expressions  of  a  selfish  charac- 
ter and  heart  in  which  our  true  guilt  abides.  If  you 
could  make  out  an  absolutely  complete  list  of  all  the 
selfish  acts  that  you  have  ever  done,  all  the  selfish  words 
that  you  have  ever  spoken,  all  the  selfish  thoughts  that 
you  have  ever  thought,  and  bringing  it  up,  should  unroll 
it  in  the  sight  of  God,  and,  pointing  with  shame  down 
the  long  catalogue,  should  say,  "■  Look,  Lord,  and  read. 
They  are  aU  there.  I  have  not  left  out  one.  The  black 
tale  is  complete  " — when  that  is  over,  have  you  confessed 
your  selfishness  ?  You  have  not  touched  it.  As  fertile 
and  as  foul  as  ever,  it  hes  deep  in  your  heart,  ready 
to  breed  new  selfish  acts  when  these  are  cleared  away. 
Not  till  you  trace  these  things  down  to  their  roots ;  not 
tOl  you  say,  "  I  did  wrong  things  because  I  was  a  wrong 
thing.  Ihved  for  myself,  not  for  my  neighbors,  be. 
cause  I  loved  myself  a  great  deal  better  than  my  neigh- 
bors, and  so  broke  God's  law  in  my  heart  before  I  broke 
it  with  my  hands.  I  was,  I  am,  a  h\-ing  violation  of  it 
evei-y  day  I  live" ;  not  till  a  spiritual  logic  traces  back 
thus  corrupt  deeds  to  their  source  in  a  corrupt  nature ; 
not  tiU  "  I  have  sinned "  means  "  I  am  sinful,"  is  the 
confession  finally  complete. 

How  feebly  we  talk  and  think  about  the  judgment- 
day  !  We  tremble  when  we  picture  God  upon  His  great 
white  throne,  hurling  at  our  dismayed  terror  the  long 
succession  of  our  sins.     We  shudder  at  the  thought  of 


192  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

this  deed  and  of  that  deed  which  we  must  meet  again, 
The  true  horror  of  the  judgment-day  will  be  the  making 
manifest  of  hearts.  What  I  have  done  will  fade  before 
the  preeminent  shame  at  what  I  have  been.  Then,  if 
not  before,  deeds  will  take  their  true  places  as  mere 
fruits  and  types  of  characters.  Just  as  we  grow  into 
the  solemnity  of  the  judgment-day  we  attain  its  point 
of  view  already,  and  learn  to  enlarge  David's  "  I  have 
sinned"  into  Simon  Peter's  "I  am  a  sinful  man,  O 
Lord."    Then,  as  we  said,  the  confession  is  complete. 

Taking  a  single  sin,  then — selfishness — I  have  tried 
to  show  you  how,  in  the  heart  of  a  man  who  is  really 
trying  to  confess  his  wickedness,  the  confession  gradu- 
ally grows  to  fullness.  First  there  is  the  seeing  of  the 
fact,  then  the  acknowledgment  of  the  moral  character 
of  the  fact,  then  the  owning  of  responsibility  to  God 
for  the  wrong-doing,  and  last  the  consciousness  that  the 
wrong-doing  is  a  wrong-being,  that  the  sins  are  sinful- 
ness. It  may  come  upon  a  man  all  in  a  flash,  as  it  did 
on  David ;  or  it  may  grow  hardly,  fought  against  stoutlj'^, 
conquering  step  by  step  for  itself,  taking  years,  per- 
haps, to  get  entire  possession  of  the  nature.  But  it 
must  come,  and  it  must  all  come,  or  the  man's  sins  are 
not  genuine^  confessed.  When  it  has  all  come,  a  man 
need  not  question  how  it  came — slowly  or  swiftly,  calmly 
or  violently ;  however  it  came,  the  confession  is  perfect, 
and  in  the  utterness  of  his  humiliation  there  is  nothing 
more  that  he  can  do. 

And  what  comes  then?  Ah,  here  we  come  to  the 
better  news,  the  glad  tidings,  the  "  Gospel "  of  our  ser- 
mon.   "  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord."    And  Nathan 


FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  193 

answered,  "The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin," 
Quickly  as  all  God's  laws  fulfil  themselves,  quick  as  the 
rain-di'ops  catch  the  sunlight  and  the  rainbow  springs 
to  sight,  quick  as  the  hillside  hears  the  thunder  and 
answers  with  its  echo,  so  quick — immediately — the 
whole  forgiveness  follows  on  the  whole  confession. 
We  need  to  know  how  absolute  this  is.  I  want  to  state 
it  in  its  fullness  and  invariableness.  There  is  a  law  in 
oui*  natures  that  makes  it  necessarily  certain  that  if 
you  touch  a  particular  muscle  the  arm  will  quiver ;  if 
you  appeal  to  a  particular  feeling  the  anger  will  rise 
and  flush  the  face.  Now  just  so  it  is  a  law  of  God's 
nature — invariable  with  a  godlike  uniformity,  more 
certain  than  the  succession  of  the  seasons  or  the  com- 
ings and  the  goings  of  the  stars — that  if  a  human  being 
touches  Him  with  a  true  confession  He  must  answer 
with  an  unreserved  forgiveness. 

Notice,  my  friends,  who  think  to  try,  this  Lent,  per- 
haps to-day,  this  great  experiment:  it  must  be  the 
complete  confession  that  we  have  been  describing.  No 
element  of  all  the  four  must  be  left  out.  It  must  have 
all  the  honesty  and  profoundness  of  the  total  act.  No 
flippant  temporary  sorrow,  no  moment's  gust  of  wild 
regi'et,  will  answer.  But  to  the  patient,  steady,  whole- 
souled  faith  of  the  entire  confession  the  attempt  is  no 
experiment.  It  must  succeed.  It  has  succeeded  as  soon 
as  it  is  made.  "  The  sin  is  put  away  "  the  very  moment 
that  the  heart  has  dropped  its  burden  by  the  cross :  "  I 
have  sinned  against  the  Lord." 

"  Are  you  not  stating  this  too  blankly  ? "  some  cau- 
tious guardian  of  the  Gospel  asks.  "  Is  there  not  some- 
thing more  needed  before  the  perfect  forgiveness,  the 


194  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

entire  reconciliation,  can  be  thus  assumed?  Will  not 
your  words  make  men  presumptuous  unless  you  add 
something  else  ?  "  What  shall  it  be,  then  ?  I  confess 
I  do  not  know.  Jesus  says,"  Ask,  and  ye  shall  receiv^e ; 
seek,  and  ye  shall  find."  Shall  we  say  that  a  man  must 
be  sorry  for  his  sin  and  leave  it  before  he  can  be  for- 
given ?  Certainly  he  must ;  but  that  act  of  converted 
resolution  is  included,  I  hold,  in  the  confession  that  I 
have  described.  If  David  meant  just  to  go  on  in  sinning 
— kOling  new  Uriahs  and  taking  their  wives — Nathan 
surely  would  never  have  accepted  his  confession.  The 
prophet  evidently  felt  that  it  included  the  determina- 
tion of  a  better  life.  But  shall  we  say  that  this  better 
life  must  be  begun,  that  some  good  steps  in  it  must  be 
taken  to  prove  its  reality,  before  a  man  ought  to  count 
himself  forgiven  f  That  is  not  so,  for  the  true  ground 
whereon  I  trust  I  am  forgiven  is  not  the  symptoms  that 
I  see  in  myself.  That  would  make  very  poor  business 
of  my  faith  and  peace.  It  is  the  simple  belief  in  the 
promises  of  God.  And  then,  besides,  since  one  of  the 
great  incentives — nay,  the  great  incentive — to  a  holy 
life  is  the  delighted  gratitude  of  known  forgiveness,  it 
surely  is  not  right  to  teU  me  I  can  know  I  am  forgiven 
only  by  seeing  in  myself  those  fruits  which  can  of  their 
very  nature  spring  only  from  a  pardon  which  I  have 
already  recognized  and  given  thanks  for.  Or  shall  we 
say  that  a  man's  reconciliation  with  God  is  not  perfect 
till  he  has  made  some  set  profession  of  his  new  inten- 
tions and  entered  into  the  outward  covenant  of  a  sac- 
ramental church  ?  Again  I  say.  Not  so  !  How  can  that 
be  necessary  to  an  act's  doing  which  has  no  meaning 
except  as  a  token  that  the  act  is  already  done?    A 


FOURTH   SUOT)AY  IN  LENT.  195 

man  is  forgiven  before  he  is  baptized ;  so  surely  neither 
baptism  nor  confirmation  is  necessary  to  his  forgive- 
ness.    Their  holy  place  comes  afterward. 

Yes,  there  is  danger  lest  we  guard  the  Gospel  over- 
much. There  is  danger  lest  the  walls  we  build  to  keep 
the  truth  in  keep  the  souls  of  men  out.  Let  us  not  be 
afraid  to  be  as  free  as  Christ.  A  whole  confession 
must  bring  a  true  forgiveness.  If  we  confess  our  sins, 
He  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us.  The  moment 
you  cry,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner,"  the  reply 
is  ready :  "  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee ;  go  in  peace." 

My  friends,  our  Lent  is  here.  There  is  no  magic  in 
its  days.  It  is  only  that  we  have  resolved  till  Easter  to 
give  more  time  and  thought  to  our  religious  hf  e.  All 
that  may  come  to  much  or  it  may  come  to  nothing.  I 
beg  you,  let  it  come  to  much.  And  the  way  to  do  that 
is  to  bring  your  soul  up  to  the  point  of  whole  and  gen- 
uine confession.  By  any  discontent  you  have  now  with 
your  hfe,  b};-  any  longing  for  a  better  heart,  by  the 
solemn  responsibility  you  owe  to  God,  by  the  great  un- 
utterable love  of  Christ,  I  beg  you,  as  if  I  went  from  ear 
to  ear  and  pleaded  with  each  of  you,  not  to  let  this  Lent 
pass  without  confessing  your  sinfulness  and  being  for- 
given and  becoming  a  grateful  servant  of  Jesus  Christ. 
May  God  grant  it  for  aU. 


XIII. 

FIFTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

"  Ye  are  they  which  have  continued  with  Me  in  My  temptations. 
And  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  as  My  Father  hath  appointed 
unto  Me." — Luke  xxii.  28,  29. 

There  are  many  texts  in  the  Bible  from  which  I 
might  easily  start  in  saying  what  I  especially  want  to 
say  to  you  to-day.  I  take  this  one  because  it  will  con- 
nect our  study  with  the  history  of  Christ.  It  was  near 
the  end  of  His  ministry.  He  was  rejoicing  in  its  great 
success.  Behold,  He  and  His  disciples  were  to  have  a 
kingdom  where  they  were  to  reign  like  kings.  But  as 
He  thinks  of  this  successful  close  of  His  great  work  His 
mind  runs  back  over  the  days  when  it  had  seemed  as 
if  it  never  would  succeed.  They  who  are  to  share  His 
kingdom  are  also  they  who  have  been  with  Him  "  in  His 
temptations."  The  end  could  not  be  reached  without  re- 
calling the  memory  of  all  the  dark  stages  of  the  journey. 
He  could  not  stand  in  the  glory  of  success  without  re- 
membering how  He  had  passed  through  clouds  of  fail- 
ure. The  days  when  the  Pharisees  had  insulted  Him, 
when  the  people  had  turned  deaf  ears  to  His  teachings, 
when  even  His  own  disciples  had  staggered  in  their  faith 
and  hesitated  whether  they  would  not  leave  Him — all 
these  days  came  back  to  His  remembrance,  as  to  the 

196 


FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN   LENT.      »  197 

recollection  of  many  a  man  the  days  of  his  failure  have 
seemed  to  start  into  life  and  reality  again  just  as  he  was 
stretching  out  his  hand  to  lay  it  on  the  prize.  This  is 
what  gives  the  profound  pathos,  the  mysterious  and  sol- 
emn minghng  of  sadness  and  joy,  which  comes  in  every 
finally  achieved  success. 

It  is  this  subject  which  I  wish  to  speak  about  to-day 
— the  relation  between  success  and  the  failures  which 
precede  it.  What  have  the  failures  to  do  with  the  suc- 
cess ?  Evidently  there  are  two  possible  ideas  regarding 
their  relationship.  One  idea  would  make  the  failures 
and  the  success  to  be  quite  separate  from  each  other. 
It  would  suppose  that  a  man  went  on  failing  and  fail- 
ing and  failing  for  a  long  time,  until  at  last  his  circum- 
stances changed  and  everything  was  altered.  Some 
lucky  accident  sent  the  wind  round  the  other  way,  and 
then  the  ship,  which  had  been  struggling  in  the  face 
of  the  gale  and  losing  ground  aU  the  time,  was  caught 
by  the  new  breeze  and  carried  on  triumphantly  into 
its  port.  The  other  idea  believes  that  the  success  which 
shows  itself  at  last  cannot  possibly  be  the  sudden  thing 
which  it  appears  to  be.  It  must  have  been  present, 
gradually  working  itself  out  underneath  the  failures, 
all  the  time.  The  failures  must  have  been  borne  upon 
its  bosom,  and  even  in  some  degree  created  by  the  local 
and  temporary  reactions  of  the  same  force  which  made 
the  great  success.  There  is  a  verse  of  one  of  the  sub- 
tlest and  truest  of  the  English  poets  of  our  time  which 
expresses  so  perfectly  this  second  idea  of  the  relation 
between  final  success  and  the  failures  wliich  precede  it 
that  I  quote  it  to  you  at  once.  He  draws  his  figure 
from  the  ocean,  with  its  waves  and  its  tide : 


198  FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

"  For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking, 
Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain, 
Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making, 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main." 

You  see  the  picture  wMch  is  in  those  words — a  stretch 
of  sea-shore  beach,  with  the  waves  breaking  in  upon  it, 
but  every  wave  a  failure ;  every  wave  bm*sting  with  a 
little  petulant  hiss  upon  the  shore,  and  falling  back  dis- 
appointed into  the  great  body  of  the  sea  behind  it ;  every 
wave  a  failure,  but  all  the  while  the  great  sea  itself,  far 
out  behind  the  sea-shore  waves,  lifted  with  a  mighty 
movement  and  rolling  itself  irresistibly  in  upon  the 
shore. 

"  Through  creeks  and  inlets  making. 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main." 

The  noisy  waves  are  failures,  but  the  great  silent  tide  is 
a  success.  The  waves  are  borne  upon  the  bosom  of  the 
tide ;  they  share  its  motion ;  nay,  the  failui'e  of  each  of 
them  in  some  degree  is  a  reaction  of  the  tide's  motion 
as  it  is  cast  back  from  the  beach.  But  all  the  time  the 
tide  is  succeeding  while  the  waves  are  failing.  The 
failures  are  carried  on  the  bosom  of  a  success  which  is 
present  underneath  them  all  the  time.  This  is  the  idea 
of  the  relation  of  failures  and  success  to  each  other 
which  is  in  the  verse  of  Clough.  If  we  drew  a  sea-pic- 
ture of  the  other  idea  it  would  not  be,  like  this,  a  picture 
of  the  tide  behind  and  under  the  waves.  It  would  be  a 
pictm-e  of  the  turning  tide,  of  the  flow  follov/ing  upon 
the  ebb,  of  a  tide  which  had  fallen  into  failure  followed 
by  another  tide  which  brought  success.  This  would  be 
the  fitting  pictm-e  of  success  and  failure  separate  from 


FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN   LENT.  199 

eacli  other,  and  one  only  coming  into  life  after  the 
other  had  died  and  passed  away. 

I  hope  that  I  do  not  obscure  with  metaphors  what  I 
want  to  make  very  plain  indeed.  Let  us  turn  back  and 
see  exactly  what  our  metaphors  mean  when  we  apply 
them  to  the  life  of  Jesus,  of  which  I  began  to  speak. 
There  had  been  a  day,  two  years  before,  when  Jesus 
was  preaching  at  Capernaum ;  and  when  His  sermon 
was  finished  it  is  written  that  ''  many  of  His  disciples 
went  back,  and  walked  no  more  with  Him."  It  was  the 
darkest  period  of  His  ministry.  It  was  the  time  when 
it  most  seemed  as  if  His  Gospel  was  going  to  be  left  on 
one  side,  and  He  was  going  to  do  no  mighty  work.  And 
now  what  shall  we  say  about  that  time  in  its  relation 
to  the  other  time,  recorded  in  the  chapter  from  which 
I  take  my  text,  when  He  sat  with  His  disciples  at  the 
table  of  the  Passover  and  calmly  shared  with  them  the 
kingdom  which  His  Father  had  bestowed  on  Him? 
Was  it  simply  that  between  these  two  times  something 
had  happened  which  had  made  a  change  in  the  fortunes 
of  the  Gospel,  so  that  what  once  was  failing  afterward 
began  to  succeed  ?  Was  it  not,  far  more  truly,  that  the 
Gospel  was  always  succeeding  from  the  first,  and  that 
what  seemed  its  temporary  failures  had  always  been 
backed  by  and  borne  upon  a  great  movement  which 
started  at  the  birth  of  Jesus ;  nay — why  should  we  stop 
there  ? — which  started  with  the  first  conception  of  the 
birth  of  Jesus  in  the  mind  of  God,  and  never  can  stop 
till  His  work  of  salvation  shall  be  completely  done  1 
Do  you  not  see  the  difference  of  these  two  ideas  ?  Do 
you  not  see,  also,  the  great  difference  which  it  must 
have  made  to  Jesus  which  of  these  two  ideas  He  Him- 


200  FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

seK  had  about  what  seemed  to  be  the  failing  moments 
of  His  life  ?  Suppose  He  had  the  first — ^the  idea  that 
the  coldness  and  indifference  and  hostility  about  Him 
meant  an  ebbing  tide,  a  great  swinging  back  away  from 
Him  of  the  whole  soul  and  substance  of  human  faith, 
and  that  there  must  be  a  total  change,  a  whole  new  dif- 
ferent movement,  before  He  could  again  get  hold  of  men 
and  make  them  believe  in  Him.  Must  He  not  have 
been  paralyzed  ?  Must  He  not  have  just  sat  down  Hst- 
lessly  upon  the  shore,  or  paced  restlessly  up  and  down 
the  sand,  waiting  for  the  turning  of  the  tide?  But  if 
He  was  full  of  the  other  idea — if  He  knew  that  a  great 
success  in  the  whole  was  perfectly  possible  even  with  the 
failure  of  many — aye,  perhaps  all — of  the  single  mani- 
fest efforts  which  He  put  forth ;  if  He  knew  that  each 
word  which  He  spoke  to  each  single  hearer  might  fall 
back  with  only  the  slightest  effect  produced  upon  his 
soul,  and  yet  that  His  word  as  one  great  total  power  of 
God  might  be  all  the  time  conquering  the  soul  of  the 
world,  then  what  patience,  what  calmness,  and  what 
zeal  to  work  there  must  have  come  to  Him !  How  He 
must  have  been  conscious  that  He  was  succeeding,  even 
though  every  effort  f eU  so  far  short  of  its  endeavor  that 
it  seemed  to  be  a  failure  !  The  special  wave  that  touched 
Chorazin  or  Bethsaida  dropped  defeated,  and  "  He  could 
do  no  mighty  work  there,  because  of  their  unbelief " ; 
but  the  great  ocean  of  His  truth  was  pressing  on  and 
occupying  the  world  aU  the  time. 

Now  it  does  seem  to  me  to  be  of  very  great  impor- 
tance that  you  and  I,  my  friends,  men  and  women  who 
are  sure  to  fail  in  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  the  best 
struggles  of  our  hves — nay,  who  are  sure  to  fail  in  some 


FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN   LENT.  201 

large  degree  in  all  the  special  struggles  which  we  ever 
make — and  yet  who  know  that  life  would  be  intoler- 
able unless  we  kept  the  hope  of  some  success  which  we 
should  ultimately  win,  should  have  and  always  keep 
this  higher  view  of  the  relations  of  success  and  failure 
which  we  have  said  must  have  been  in  Jesus.  Here  are 
you,  for  instance,  wi-estling  with  your  special  sin,  with 
that  old  enemy  whom  you  cany  about  with  you,  bound 
up  in  the  selfsame  heart  with  all  your  best  aspirations 
and  desires.  Every  special  effort  that  you  make  to  con- 
quer that  sin  fails.  Every  time  you  try  to  be  true  you 
are  half  false.  Every  time  you  try  to  be  spiritual  the 
carnality  about  you  beats  you  back.  Every  time  you  set 
up  the  white  banner  of  purity  the  dark  clouds  of  lust 
gather  around  it  and  it  is  well-nigh  lost.  Do  you  not 
know  the  picture  ? — the  weary  sense  of  being  beaten ; 
the  old  familiar  disappointment  that  comes  back  at  the 
close  of  the  day,  when  you  let  your  hands  drop  and  say, 
"  Well,  once  more  my  sin  has  been  too  strong  for  me  !  " 
What  can  be  done?  We  know  how  to  some  men  it 
seems  as  if  nothing  were  to  be  done  here ;  as  if  a  total 
change  of  all  conditions  must  occur  before  a  man  could 
have  any  chance  against  his  sins.  Some  men  seem  to 
dream  of  heaven  as  if  there  only  the  soul  of  man  could 
come  to  any  great  success ;  as  if  until  it  came  there  it 
must  always  be  a  losing  fight.  But  the  best  and  most 
faithful  men  have  always  had  a  truer  thought.  Out  of 
God's  revelation  and  their  own  experience  it  has  been 
shown  to  them  that  a  life  might  be  succeeding  in  the 
struggle  after  goodness  even  while  every  effort  of  the 
man  who  lived  that  life  to  be  good  fell  so  far  short  of 
what  he  wanted  it  to  be  that  he  could  call  it  nothing  but 


202  FIFTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

a  failure.  The  purpose,  the  consecration,  of  the  life  to 
God  and  goodness  is  its  tide.  The  special  struggles  to 
do  good  things  are  the  waves.  The  deep,  persistent, 
and  unchanging  hate  of  the  peeuhar  sin,  which  is  deter- 
mined never  to  be  reconciled  to  it  and  to  fight  against 
it  till  it  dies — that  is  the  soul's  success,  which  does  not 
falter  or  stop,  and  which  carries  along  upon  it  all  the 
partial  failures  of  which  the  life  is  full. 

I  am  sure  that  I  speak  to  the  consciousness  of  some  of 
you,  my  friends,  when  I  speak  thus.  Do  you  not  know 
what  it  is  to  be  failing  every  day,  and  yet  to  be  sure — 
humbly  but  deeply  sui*e — that  your  life  is,  as  a  whole, 
in  its  great  movement  and  meaning,  not  failing,  but  suc- 
ceeding ?  You  want  to  do  that  best  work  that  a  man 
can  do — to  make  life  brighter  and  nobler  for  your  fel- 
low-men. Not  a  day  passes  in  which  you  do  not  some- 
how try  to  do  that  blessed  work ;  but  every  time  you 
turn  away  after  one  of  those  attempts  to  give  sympathy 
or  inspiration  to  your  brethren,  how  your  heart  sinks, 
so  cold  and  so  ignoble  are  the  words  which  you  meant 
to  be  so  generous  and  warm !  And  yet  all  the  while 
you  know  that  the  whole  life  does  not  fail.  Still  there 
is  the  purpose  !  It  does  not  die.  It  is  not  given  up. 
It  presses  forward,  wounded  and  bleeding,  but  more 
and  more  determined  every  day.  Every  day  it  grows 
clearer  and  clearer  to  you  that  without  that  wash  and 
hope  and  resolution  life  would  not  be  worth  living. 
You  want  to  be  absolutely  true.  But  see  !  the  account 
which  you  gave  of  yourself  yesterday  told  only  half  the 
truth.  The  day  before  you  could  not  bring  your- 
self squarely  to  face  the  fact.  Last  week  you  let  a 
lie  pass  unchallenged  and  entered  into  silent  partner- 


FIFTH   SUNDAY  EST  LENT.  203 

ship  with  it.  Nevertheless  you  know  that  you  are  grow- 
ing truthful,  and  the  blessed  day  draws  nearer  when 
deceit  shall  be  completely  trodden  underfoot.  !So  it  is 
true  of  you  that  in  a  deeper  life  which  underlies  your 
actions,  in  the  life  of  resolution  and  of  consecration  on 
which  the  life  of  action  moves  as  the  waves  run  back- 
ward often  on  the  bosom  of  the  still  advancing  tide — 
in  that  you  are  succeeding,  even  while  again  and  again 
in  special  acts  you  fail. 

I  hear  men  say,  "  Oh,  it  is  not  so  bad  for  me  to  drink, 
to  steal,  to  lie,  for  I  am  not  a  Christian,  I  make  no  pro- 
fession, I  have  never  pledged  myself  nor  undertaken  to 
live  a  holy  life."  They  are  all  wrong.  They  are  failing 
from  top  to  bottom — failing  all  the  way  down.  They 
are  succeeding  neither  in  the  special  acts  nor  in  the  gen- 
eral purpose  of  their  Uves.  The  poor  stumbling  saint 
who  through  a  thousand  f al  s  and  defeats  keeps  still  the 
consecration  of  his  Life,  and  will  be  God's  through  every- 
thing, melancholy  enough  his  broken  and  unworthy 
life  may  be ;  but  it  is  better,  even  so,  than  if  he  cast 
his  consecration  off ;  better,  even  so,  than  his  brother's 
life  beside  him,  who  makes  no  consecration  of  his  life 
and  sins  in  wanton  freedom  and  feels  no  self -rebuke. 

I  know  that  I  am  treading  here  on  dangerous  gi'ound. 
I  know  that  I  am  deaUng  wdtli  ideas  which  men  have 
terribly  perverted  and  misused.  But  the  ground  is  not 
to  be  abandoned  because  it  is  dangerous  ;  the  ideas  are 
not  to  be  denied  because  of  their  misuse.  This  tmth 
which  I  am  preaching  is  no  conceited  antinomianisra 
making  believe  that  a  man's  sins  are  no  sins  for  him  if 
only  liis  heart  is  pious  and  his  general  intentions  good. 
Nor  is  it  any  silly  and  mischievous  doctrine  about  evil 


204  FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

being  only  "  good  in  the  making  " — a  necessary  stage  in 
every  man's  progression  to  the  purer  life.  No  !  Both 
of  these  ideas  are  bad.  Sin  is  sin  whoever  does  it. 
Sin  is  sin  however  out  of  its  poisonous  heart  may  come 
some  blessed  medicine  of  penitence  and  watchfulness 
for  the  soul  that  does  it.  Both  of  these  doctrines  are 
destructive.  Sin  is  always  bad — always  a  loss.  The 
wave  that  seems  to  fail  does  fail.  Only  he  who  makes 
that  truth  the  only  truth  of  life  and  sees  no  other  truth 
is  leaving  out  the  deepest  truth,  the  truth  in  which  re- 
demption lies.  Not  in  the  leaves,  but  in  the  root,  lives 
the  tree's  life.  Not  in  the  act,  but  in  the  heart,  are  the 
issues  of  life  and  death ;  and  failure  never  is  total  and 
complete  tiU  the  heart  turns  away  in  obstinacy  and  sets 
its  face  toward  evil.  If  you  know  that  you  have  not 
done  that,  then,  O  my  friend,  however  you  have  sinned, 
you  have  not  finally  and  fully  failed,  and  the  door  of 
success  and  hope  stands  open  to  you. 

It  would  be  interesting,  if  we  had  time,  to  see  at 
length  how  the  principle  of  which  we  are  speaking  ap- 
plies to  faith  as  weU  as  conduct.  Many  and  many  an 
attempt  of  yours  to  believe  in  divine  things  seems  a  fail- 
ure. Perhaps  all  evidence  that  you  can  find  for  their 
existence  seems  inconclusive  and  unsatisfactory.  Per- 
haps, allowing  fully  their  existence,  every  effort  to  get 
hold  of  them,  to  fix  them  close  to  your  life  with  any 
such  grasp  as  could  properly  be  called  faith,  appears  a 
failure.  How  many  such  discouragements  there  are ! 
How  many  special  efforts  to  believe  are  just  exactly  like 
the  reaching  up  of  waves  on  to  the  shore,  a  struggle  up- 
ward, a  wild,  convulsive,  desperate  reach  forward,  and 
then  a  falling  back  again  into  the  bosom  of  the  great 


FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  205 

ocean  out  of  which  the  ambitious  and  enterprising  wave 
ventured  to  spring  !  But  yet  we  know  that  is  not  all 
the  story.  That  gi'eat  bosom  of  the  sea  itself  is  moving 
shoreward,  and  the  next  ambitious,  enterprising  wave 
which  tries  its  strength  upon  the  shore  will  start  from 
a  sea-line  more  advanced,  and  will  make  a  little  higher 
record  of  itself  upon  the  sand,  before  it  too  falls  away 
— will  fail  a  little  farther  on.  Is  there  not  something 
like  that,  also,  in  our  experience  ?  We  try  to  lay  hold 
of  a  certain  truth  and  we  fail ;  but  aU  the  time  there  is 
in  our  soul  a  deep,  simple,  earnest  craving  after  ti-uth  in 
general ;  behind  each  special  struggle  after  faith  there 
is  a  constant  faithfulness,  and  below  our  craving  for  God's 
special  revelations  there  is  a  perpetual  hungering  and 
thirsting  after  God  Himself.  And  that  is  always  mov- 
ing on,  and  every  new  attempt  to  know  about  Him  starts 
from  a  higher  level  of  the  spiritual  knowledge  of  Him, 
and  so  attains  a  little  more  satisfaction,  before  it  too, 
in  its  turn,  falls  back  into  that  inevitable  failure  which 
awaits  every  attempt  of  man  to  grasp  and  understand 
the  things  of  God.  This  is  the  history  of  many  a  faith- 
ful life.  Upon  the  bosom  of  a  true  faith  in  God,  ever 
becoming  more  and  more  successful,  ever  pressing  for- 
ward into  greater  clearness,  are  born  and  live  the  spe- 
cial efforts  to  attain  the  truths  of  God  which  never  can 
succeed.  They  share  the  movement  of  the  deeper  faith 
on  which  they  rest.  They  are  lost  and  come  totally  to 
nothing  if  they  try  to  live  apart  from  that  movement. 
But,  living  upon  it,  they  are  healthy  and  vital,  and  every 
time  they  fail  they  bring  back  their  store  of  earnestness 
and  zeal  to  add  to  the  body  of  the  larger  and  deeper 
faith  out  of  which  they  sprang.     It  is  in  this  constant 


206  FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN  LENT. 

consciousness  at  once  of  succeeding  and  of  failing  that 
the  souls  most  rich  in  faith  live  on  year  after  year. 
'*  Lord,  I  believe  ;  help  Thou  mine  unbelief/'  is  then*  per- 
petual prayer.  Humihty  and  hope  grow  stronger  to- 
gether in  them  every  day.  And  life  becomes  at  once 
more  patient  and  more  enthusiastic,  more  expectant  of 
temporary  failure  and  more  certain  of  ultimate  success, 
the  longer  that  they  hve. 

I  am  sui-e  that  it  must  help  many  of  us  if  we  can  see 
how  our  truth  is  true,  also,  with  regard  to  the  matter  of 
happiness  and  sorrow.  There  is  a  happiness  so  deep,  a 
furnishing  of  the  nature  so  profoundly  with  the  condi- 
tions of  joy,  that  it  may  bear  upon  its  breast  a  hundred 
sorrows  and  yet  be  happy  still.  Alas  if  it  were  not  so ! 
Alas  if  the  perpetual  presence  of  disappointed  hopes  and 
broken  plans  and  severed  ties  were  all ;  if  underneath 
them  all  it  were  not  possible  for  a  soul  to  carry  in  itself 
so  true  and  rich  a  peace  and  contentment  in  the  diviuest 
things  that  it  should  know  not  merely  that  it  was  going 
to  be  happy  some  day  or  other,  when  the  great  change 
should  come,  but  that  it  was  happy  now  with  a  happi- 
ness that  nothing  coi^ld  disturb  ! 

And  yet  once  more,  I  find  in  our  truth  of  the  double 
fact  of  life,  the  fact  of  deeper  condition  and  the  superfi- 
cial phenomena,  the  fact  of  the  tide  and  the  wave  in  all 
existence — I  find  in  this  the  real  key  to  the  state  and 
the  prospects  of  the  world  at  large.  The  world  is  grow- 
ing better — I  know  it.  A  great  unceasing  movement 
toward  truth  and  goodness  is  carrying  slowly  forward 
ever  the  character  of  this  great,  mighty,  mysterious 
humanity.  How  slow  it  is,  but  oh,  how  real  it  is,  the 
study  of  the  ages  tells.    And  yet  behold  how  the  good 


FIFTH   SUNDAY  IN  LENT.  207 

causes  fail.  Behold  how  selfishness  comes  in  to  parar 
lyze  each  great  endeavor  for  the  good  of  man.  Alas  for 
him  who  only  sees  this  surface  fact ;  who  does  not  feel 
beneath  it  all  the  heave  and  movement  of  the  whole  race 
forward  toward  goodness,  toward  God  !  To  him  who 
hears  at  once  the  tumult  of  moral  failures  all  around 
him  and  the  steady  progress  of  the  gi-eat  moral  success 
beneath  him — to  him  the  world  becomes  solemn  and 
beautiful,  pathetic  and  full  of  hope.  For  him  despair- 
ing pessimism  and  silly  optimism  both  become  impos- 
sible. A  divine  optimism,  which,  while  it  dares  not 
say,  "  Whatever  is  is  best,"  devoutly  says,  "  The  best  is 
strongest  and  shall  ultimately  conquer  and  use  even  the 
worst,"  becomes  the  habit  of  his  life.  Such  was  the 
optimism  of  Jesus.  Such  is  the  optimism  of  His  dis- 
ciples if  they  catch  His  spirit. 

"  Ye  must  be  born  again,"  said  Jesus.  I  ponder  these 
divine  words  of  His,  and  ever  more  and  more  they  seem 
to  me  immeasurably  deep.  There  is  no  end  to  them. 
To  think  of  them  is  like  gazing  into  endless  space.  But 
one  great  truth  which  they  assuredly  contain  is  this : 
that  life  for  any  man  is  not  complete  until  a  deeper 
and  a  higher  life  is  put  beneath  and  over  the  mere  life 
of  action,  into  which  the  soul  can  perpetually  retreat, 
and  on  whose  breast  the  life  of  action  can  be  buoyantly 
upborne.  There  are  men  who  the  world  thinks  are  al- 
ways failing  who  are  themselves  conscious  of  a  success 
which  is  a  truer  truth  to  them  than  aU  their  failures. 
They  are  the  men  who  have  been  born  again,  and  who 
carry  the  new  life  underneath  the  old  life  all  the  while. 
The  Master  of  that  new  life  is  Christ.   The  soul  worried 


208  FIFTH   SUNDAY   IN  LENT. 

and  torn  with,  disappointments,  haunted  by  the  taunts 
of  fellow-souls  which  tell  it  it  has  failed,  suspicious  of 
itself,  yet  keeping  still  its  faithfulness  and  consecration, 
goes  to  Him,  to  Christ,  and  lo  !  it  finds  a  new  fact  there. 
Below  its  failures  He  has  for  it  success.  Through  all 
its  deaths  He  brings  out  for  it,  as  He  brought  out  for 
Himself,  life!  "I  too,"  He  says,  "seemed  to  fail,  biit 
in  My  Father  I  succeeded."  "  You  shall  share  with  Me. 
Ye  are  they  which  have  continued  with  Me  in  My  temp- 
tations. And  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  as  My 
Father  hath  appointed  unto  Me." 

Whatever  failures  He  may  have  for  us  to  pass  through 
fii-st,  may  He  bring  us  all  at  last  to  that  success  in  Him. 


XIV. 
THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER. 

"And  they  that  went  before,  and  they  that  followed,  cried, 
saying,  Hosanna ;  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord." — Mark  xi.  9. 

It  was  the  first  Palm  Sunday  and  Jesus  was  coming 
to  Jerusalem — that  old  picture  which  so  many  genera- 
tions have  looked  upon  and  studied.  As  He  came  the 
whole  city  was  full  of  stir  and  tumult.  Every  element 
in  it  responded  to  Him  who  was  approaching  according 
to  its  nature.  The  simple-minded  people  came  stream- 
ing out  to  meet  Him.  The  thoughtful,  puzzled  students, 
not  hostile,  with  some  degree  of  sympathy,  sat  at  home 
listening  to  the  tumult  and  wondering  whether  it  could 
possibly  be  that  this  was  "He  of  whom  Moses  in  the 
law,  and  the  prophets,  did  write  " ;  whether  this  uproar 
that  they  heard  streaming  down  the  Mount  of  Olives 
and  pouiing  into  the  city's  eastern  gate  really  could 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  old  prophecy  about  "  the 
Lord  coming  suddenly  to  His  temple."  Those  whom 
He  had  cured  of  sicknesses  blessed  Him  anew  as  they 
heard  of  His  approach.  Those  who  had  believed  in 
Him  felt  their  faith  deepen  at  the  sound  of  His  triumph. 
Those  who  despised  Him  sneered  anew  at  the  people's 
Idol.     "  Have  any  of  the  Pharisees  believed  on  Him  ? " 

209 


210      THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER. 

they  said  over  and  over  to  one  another.  The  priests 
hugged  their  traditions  closer  and  said,  "  There  is  noth- 
ing about  Him  here."  The  lordly  Romans  stalked  by 
superciliously,  hardly  deigning  to  glance  at  the  passing 
procession,  only  wondering  what  these  absurd,  fantastic 
Hebrews  would  do  next.  Each  man  according  to  His 
nature  answered  to  the  coming  Christ.  It  was  like  the 
judgment-day. 

It  would  be  easy  to  see  in  Jerusalem  upon  that  day  a 
picture  of  the  way  in  which  the  world  at  large,  with  all 
its  different  classes  of  mankind,  has  always  been  judged 
by  the  approach  of  Jesus,  It  would  be  easy,  and  per- 
haps it  would  be  interesting,  to  discover  in  the  world 
full  of  men  all  of  those  different  groups  or  classes  which 
were  in  that  city.  But  such  a  study  would  be  too  gen- 
eral. What  I  want  to  do  rather  than  that  is  to  see  how 
our  own  souls,  the  soul  of  each  of  us,  is  represented  by 
Jerusalem,  and  how  His  Palm  Sunday  offer  of  Himself 
to  His  own  city  is  repeated  in  the  offer  which  Christ 
makes  of  Himself  to  every  heart.  Let  us  set  our  OM^n 
soul  on  that  rocky  hill  and  see  Christ  come  to  it.  Long 
heard  of,  not  a  stranger,  having  often  passed  before  our 
sight,  at  last  He  comes  finally  and  formally  to  claim  us 
for  His  own,  to  solemnly  assert  that  we  belong  to  Him, 
to  bid  us  make  our  choice  whether  we  will  take  Him 
for  our  King  or  not.  Such  days  do  come  to  all  of  us — 
days  when  we  feel  as  if  the  Saviour,  who  had  been  long- 
tempting  us,  had  gathered  up  all  His  power  of  appeal 
and  expected  to  be  then  either  accepted  or  rejected ; 
days  when  the  chance  of  the  new  spiritual  life  seems 
to  stand  with  peculiar  solemnity  before  our  heart.  Such 
days  are  to  us  what  Palm  Sunday  was  to  Jerusalem. 


THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER.      211 

Our  whole  nature,  like  one  great  city,  answers  in  re- 
sponse with  many  voices  which  yet  make  in  the  end  one 
great  decision. 

There  is  much  in  a  human  nature,  in  a  human  soul, 
that  is  like — at  least,  that  may  be  fitly  represented  by — 
the  marvelously  interesting  life  of  a  great  city.  There 
is  the  same  mixture  of  many  elements  which  yet  make 
a  tnie  unity.  In  a  soul,  as  in  a  city,  there  may  be  in- 
ternal conflict  and  dissension,  while  yet  at  any  moment 
the  distracted  soul,  like  the  distracted  city,  will  tm'n  as 
one  being  to  resist  an  invader  from  without.  A  man, 
like  a  city,  has  a  corporate  viill,  and  does  actions  from 
which,  nevertheless,  much  that  is  in  him  may  dissent. 
The  same  sort  of  bewildered  but  yet  true  and  effective 
personahty  which  is  in  a  city  is  what  thoughtful  and 
earnest  men  are  always  recognizing  in  themselves — a 
personality  which,  while  it  finds  it  verj^  hard  to  give  a 
satisfactory  account  of  itself,  j-et  accepts  its  duties,  its 
responsibilities,  its  privileges,  is  proud  of  itself  and 
ashamed  of  itself  as  only  a  genuine  person  can  be. 

Thus  it  is,  then,  that  without  too  great  fancifulness 
we  may  picture  the  approach  of  Jesus  to  our  souls 
under  the  figure  of  His  entrance  into  Jerusalem.  He 
comes  to  one  of  us  as  He  came  to  that  city  of  His  and 
of  His  Father's.  Think  how  sacred  it  was  to  Him. 
Think  how  He  loved  it.  Think  what  vast  precious  pos- 
sibilities he  could  see  sleeping  behind  its  bi-Uliant  walls. 
There  was  His  Father's  temple.  There  was  the  whole 
machinery  for  making  the  complete  manhood.  And 
yet  there  was  defiance,  selfishness,  unspmtuality,  and 
cruelty — the  house  of  prayer  turned  iuto  the  den  of 
thieves.     O  my  dear  friends,  if  Christ,  as  He  comes  to 


212      THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER. 

any  one  of  us  to  offer  us  His  salvation,  never  forgets 
for  a  moment  what  we  might  be  in  the  sight  of  what 
we  are,  and  never  forgets  for  a  moment  what  we  are  in 
the  vision  of  what  we  might  be ;  if  He  always  sees  om* 
sins  in  the  light  of  our  chances,  and  our  chances  against 
the  shadow  of  our  sins,  then  what  Jerusalems  we  must 
be  to  Him !  He  loves  us  as  He  loved  that  city,  with  a 
love  fuU  of  reproach  and  accusation.  He  stops  as  He 
comes  in  sight  of  us,  and  "  beholds  the  city,  and  weeps 
over  it."  I  can  think  of  no  picture  which  so  lets  me  into 
the  very  depths  of  the  soul  of  Christ  as  He  approaches 
a  soul  of  man  which  He  longs  to  save  as  that  which 
depicts  Him  stopping  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  where 
Jerusalem  first  comes  in  sight,  and  beholding  the  city, 
and  weeping  over  it. 

But  I  want  to  speak  not  so  much  of  what  is  in  His 
soul  as  of  what  is  in  the  soul  to  which  He  comes.  It 
cannot  be  indifferent  to  Him.  And  there  does  not  come 
out  one  clear,  simple  utterance  of  reception  or  rejection, 
any  more  than  Jerusalem  was  unanimous  and  prompt  to 
receive  or  to  reject  the  Saviour  when  He  came  to  her. 
From  the  soul,  as  from  the  city,  come  various  answers, 
uttering  the  various  portions  of  its  complex  life.  See 
what  some  of  them  are  : 

1.  And  first  there  is  in  every  soul  something  that 
spontaneously  welcomes  Christ.  It  has  been  always  so. 
It  makes  the  basis  to  which  the  power  of  the  Saviour 
always  immediately  appeals.  There  is  a  childlike  ele- 
ment in  every  heart,  a  deep  and  underlying  fi'eshness  of 
perception,  to  which  when  He,  that  bright,  strong,  divine 
Presence,  is  presented,  it  immediately  knows  Him  and 
goes  out  to  meet  Him,  as  the  children  and  the  common 


I 


THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER.      213 

people  streamed  out  on  Palm  Sunday  to  meet  the  com- 
ing Christ.  There  is  something  of  the  child,  something 
of  the  common  humanity,  in  every  man.  And  there  is 
something,  too,  of  discontent,  something  of  a  sense  of 
unf uliilment.  There  is  a  Simeon  and  Anna  part  always 
in  the  temple  of  our  souls.  There  is  a  readiness  to  hear 
any  voice  that  promises  release  and  the  lifting  of  hori- 
zons and  the  dawning  of  a  larger  day.  And,  deeper  still, 
there  is  an  aching  consciousness  of  wickedness  that  is 
a  mixture  of  despair  and  hope,  but  alwaj^s  has  more  of 
hope  in  it  than  despair ;  there  is  a  sense  of  sin  wanting 
forgiveness.  All  this  part  of  our  nature,  the  child  part, 
the  needy  part,  not  yet  drilled  into  submission  and 
content,  this  part  which  either  by  loftiness  or  lowness 
is  ready  for  new  things  (for  I  suppose  that  the  company 
which  brought  Jesus  down  the  Mount  of  Olives  had  in 
it  the  noblest  and  purest  and  also  the  most  sinful  and 
wretched  souls  in  all  Jerusalem) — all  this  part  of  us  it  is 
that  spontaneously  welcomes  Jesus,  crying,  "  Hosanna ; 
Blessed  is  He  that  cometli  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

I  think  that  we  are  always  somewhat  puzzled  and  sur- 
prised when  we  set  ourselves  to  realize  how  Jesus  ap- 
peared among  His  generation  in  Jerusalem,  and  what 
sort  of  people  it  was  that  He  primarily  attracted  to  Him. 
In  the  best  sense  of  the  word  He  was  a  radical.  He 
went  Himself,  and  carried  all  who  would  go  with  Him, 
to  the  roots  of  things ;  and  when  reform  was  needed 
He  always  would  begin  it  there.  His  religion  has  been 
so  long  identified  Avith  conservatism — often  with  con- 
servatism of  the  obstinate  and  unyielding  sort — that  it 
is  almost  startling  for  us  sometmies  to  remember  that 
all  the  conservatism  of  His  own  times  was  against  Him, 


214      THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER. 

that  it  was  the  young,  free,  restless,  sanguine,  progres- 
sive part  of  the  people  who  flocked  to  Him.  The  Church 
of  our  day  has  to  be  on  her  guard  against  those  who 
seek  her  for  the  mere  shadow  of  her  established  respec- 
tability, Jesus,  in  His  day,  had  to  send  away  more  than 
one  who  came  to  Him  as  if  He  were  the  mere  prophet 
of  discontent,  the  captain  of  a  company  of  revolution- 
ists. Such  a  change  in  the  whole  attitude  of  men  to- 
ward Christ  every  thoughtful  observer  sees.  But  still, 
changed  as  may  be  the  aspect  of  the  Church  at  large, 
in  personal  experience  the  old  condition  of  the  time  of 
Jesus  reappears.  Out  of  the  city  of  each  man's  heart  it 
is  the  bright,  young,  free,  hopeful  element  that  starts  up 
at  His  coming  to  bid  Him  welcome.  Every  man  who 
truly  becomes  a  Christian  is  an  idealist  then.  Then, 
at  that  moment  when  he  takes  Christ  in,  he  believes  in 
the  perf ectibihty  of  human  life.  The  dry  man  of  books, 
the  dusty  man  of  business,  the  old  man  crusted  with 
the  dreary  years — they  all  grow  young  again ;  the  ever- 
lastingly young  part  in  each  of  them  asserts  itself  when 
they  take  Cln-ist.  The  old,  dry,  dusty  part  of  them  has 
to  stand  aside.  The  everlastingly  young  part  of  them 
goes  streaming  out  at  the  gates,  up  on  the  road  that 
climbs  the  mountain,  shouting,  exulting,  flinging  down 
branches,  spreading  clothes  for  the  pathway  where  the 
Christ  is  coming.  This  is  one  of  the  many  meanings 
of  the  word  of  Jesus  about  the  necessity  of  being  born 
again,  and  of  that  other  word  of  His  about  receiving 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child. 

2.  This  is  the  part  in  us  that  welcomes  Christ.  But 
now  turn  to  some  other  parts  in  us  and  see  how  they 
receive  Him,  see  how  they  correspond  to  other  elements 


THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTiSr.      215 

which  were  there  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  on  that 
Pfl-lm  Sunday.  There  were  skeptics  there — groups  of 
Sadducees  who  looked  with  a  sort  of  superior  pity  upon 
the  whole  transaction.  They  turned  aside  to  let  the 
host  sweep  by,  and  then  looked  after  it  and  shook  their 
heads,  with  that  sort  of  pity  which  is  at  the  soul  of  the 
intensest  pride.  The  pride  that  hates  is  never  so  in- 
tensely supercUious  and  proud  as  the  pride  that  pities. 
And  in  our  hearts  who  of  us  has  not  realized  the  pres- 
ence of  that  sort  of  pride ;  who  of  us  has  not  found  the 
skeptical  part  of  himself  pitying  the  faithful  part  of 
himself  for  what  it  counted  the  childish  folly  of  being 
inclined  to  accept  a  supernatural  Redeemer  ?  If  I  could 
open  the  history  of  your  closets  I  could  find  there  what 
I  mean.  When  have  you  prayed  to  God  so  completely, 
with  such  perfect  sense  of  His  nearness  and  His  love, 
that  right  alongside  your  faith,  mixed  with  it  in  the 
same  heart  as  part  of  the  same  nature,  there  has  not 
been  something  of  self-pity — a  superior,  indulgent  sort 
of  toleration  of  your  own  weakness  in  needing  to  pray 
and  in  venturing  to  pray  ?  Surely  there  are  many  souls 
here  who  know  that  experience.  Many  and  many  a  time 
the  child  in  us  prays  while  the  man  in  us  stands  by 
and  pities.  The  bright,  simple,  spontaneous  impulses  go 
out  toward  God,  fly  up  to  heaven,  while  the  dull,  earth 
bound  habits  cling  to  the  ground  and  look  after  thb 
aspiring  desires  with  a  kindly  and  supercilious  admu'a- 
tion,  as  the  man  standing  firm  upon  the  earth  looks  after 
the  birds  fl}ing  up  into  the  sky.  And  so  if  it  is  not 
prayer,  but  obedience.  There  is  a  part  of  us  that  tries 
to  obey  our  Master,  Christ ;  tries  to  do  right  because  it 
is  His  will.     But  when  we  are  called  upon  in  any  way 


216  THE   SUNDAY  NEXT   BEFORE  EASTER. 

to  give  an  account  of  our  efforts  after  righteousness,  how 
quickly  another  part  of  us  springs  forward  and  hastily 
flings  a  veil  of  lower  motive  over  this  devotion  and  per- 
sonal obedience,  as  if  it  were  ashamed  of  it !  You  do 
some  good  deed  simply  because  you  really  want  to  honor 
and  obey  your  Saviour,  and  then  you  say,  "  Oh  yes,  I 
did  it ;  I  thought  it  was  a  wise,  politic  thing  to  do."  It 
is  the  skeptical  part  of  you  disowning  the  faithful  part 
of  you.  And  so  when  one  lives  in  God's  communion, 
enjoys,  delights  in,  day  by  day,  the  blessed  society  of  a 
divine  Master,  and  then  says  to  himself,  "  Nay,  but  this 
peace,  this  hourly  delight,  who  can  say  how  much  of  it 
comes  of  a  fortunate  disposition,  good  health,  and  a 
successful  business?"  Once  more  it  is  the  skeptic  in 
us  poisoning  the  faith  of  the  believer  in  us.  And  how 
close  they  lie  to  each  other,  crowded  in  together  in 
this  mysterious  selfhood,  that  can  be  measured  only  by 
One  who  has  realized  what  units  these  complex  lives  of 
ours  really  are ! 

Thus  ever  in  the  streets  of  our  inner  Jerusalem 
stands  the  Saddueee  and  watches  and  disbelieves  and 
pities  while  our  ready  and  simple  faith  welcomes  Christ. 
Blessed  is  he  in  whom  the  simple  faith  presses  on,  un- 
dismayed even  by  his  own  self-doubt  and  self-scorn, 
until  it  has  brought  the  Lord  into  the  central  temple 
of  the  heart  and  made  Him  Master  there. 

3.  But  in  Jerusalem  on  that  Palm  Sunday  there  were 
not  only  those  who  doubted  Christ,  there  were  some  peo- 
ple, also,  who  hated  Christ ;  some  people  whom  He  in- 
terfered with ;  some  people  who  felt  that  they  could  not 
live  in  the  same  city  with  Him — that  either  He  or  they 
must  give  way  and  go  out.     There  were  the  Pharisees, 


THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER.      217 

who  saw  in  Jesus  the  contradiction  of  all  their  most 
treasured  traditions  and  favorite  ideas ;  and  there  were 
the  sinners,  whom  He  had  rebuked  for  all  their  differ- 
ent kinds  of  sin — the  cheats,  the  liars,  the  blasphemers, 
the  haters,  the  impure,  the  wicked  men  of  every  sort. 
The  Pharisee  said,  "  If  what  this  Teacher  says  is  true, 
all  that  I  say  is  false."  The  sinner  said,  ''  If  what  this 
Master  commands  is  right,  my  life  is  horrible."  Be- 
tween each  of  these  men  and  Jesus  there  was  war  to  the 
death.  One  or  other  of  them  must  yield  or  die.  What 
shall  we  say  ?  Is  there  any  analogy  here  ?  If  there  is 
in  your  heart  at  this  moment  any  hard,  proud,  selfish, 
narrow  notion  of  religion  which  you  would  have  to  see 
cast  down  and  trodden  underfoot  before  the  breadth  and 
the  humility  of  the  Gospel  faith  could  take  entire  pos- 
session of  your  soul,  then,  teU  me,  have  you  not  within 
you  an  element  which  corresponds  exactly  to  what  the 
Pharisees  were  in  Jerusalem  ?  And  if  you  are  living 
in  sins  of  any  sort  which  are  deliberate  and  obstinate, 
which  you  do  not  mean  to  give  up,  and  which  Christ 
hates,  with  which  He  cannot  live,  then  there  is  that  in 
you  which  hates  Christ.  For  hate  is  not  merely  an  ex- 
cited emotion ;  hate  is  a  moral  antagonism.  Sin  and 
goodness  always  must  hate  each  other,  like  darkness  and 
light.  Stni  you  may  love  Christ,  too,  at  the  same  time  ; 
for,  with  aU  your  unity,  you  are  this  mixed  Jerusalem. 
Still  you  may  love  Christ,  even  while  you  hate  Him. 
You  have  had  little  of  the  deepest  experience  of  life  if 
you  have  not  learned  long  before  this  that  all  the  strong- 
est powers  are  capable  of  holding  us  with  a  double  grasp, 
making  us  hate  and  love  them  at  the  same  moment. 
The  noblest  man,  until  you  unreservedly  yield  yourself 


218      THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER. 

to  his  nobleness,  is  a  provocation  to  your  wrath  and  to 
your  love  together.  It  is  both  the  anger  and  the  joy 
with  which  he  fills  you  that  blend  in  the  fascination  of 
his  presence.  And  so  Christ  may  be  hated  by  the  part 
of  our  nature  with  which  He  interferes  and  which  wiU 
not  yield  to  Him,  with  a  hate  all  the  deeper  for  the  ardent 
affection  with  which  at  the  same  moment  another  part 
of  our  nature  is  rejoicing  in  His  love.  The  conflict,  the 
struggle,  of  such  a  divided  nature  no  one  can  describe. 
Some  of  you  remember  it ;  nay,  some  of  you  are  in  the 
midst  of  it.  It  is  raging  underneath  the  quiet  faces  that 
you  wear  before  your  brethren.  It  breaks  out  when 
you  are  alone.  Youi*  midnight  watches  have  seen  its 
tumult.  Oh,  how  anxiously  the  Christ  whom  a  heart's 
love  is  carrying  to  His  temple  must  watch  the  love  that 
caii-ies  Him,  and  give  it  His  strength,  that  it  may  not 
be  frightened  or  dismayed  when  it  has  to  carry  Him 
right  through  the  shadow  of  a  hate  which  is  part  with 
it  of  the  same  human  nature  ! 

4.  There  is  one  other  element  in  the  population  of 
Jerusalem  whom  I  want  to  make  you  see.  I  never  can 
think  of  that  strange  city  in  the  time  of  Jesus  without 
seeming  to  see  stalking  about  among  the  native  Jewish 
people  who  were  perfectly  at  home  there  the  figui*es  of 
the  Roman  soldiers  who  constituted  the  garrison  with 
which  the  conquerors  held  the  now  subject  aity.  TaU, 
strong,  coarse,  rugged  frames  they  wore,  and  as  they 
walked  the  streets  a  brutal  insolence  mingled  with  a 
superb  contempt  in  the  cold  curiosity  with  which  they 
scrutinized  the  strange  people  whom  they  had  been  sent 
to  guard.  Thej'-  were  foreigners,  but  here  they  held 
the  natives  in  subjection.    They  had  no  sympathy  with 


THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER.      219 

the  mysterious  spiritual  associations  by  which  they 
found  themselves  surrounded.  They  were  wholly  of 
the  earth.  All  they  wanted  was  to  keep  the  peace,  to 
prevent  an  outbreak.  Truth,  spirituality,  eternal  life — 
aU  these  meant  nothing  to  them.  They  were  mere  power 
and  mere  system,  earthly  order  embodied,  as  they  stood 
watching  Christ's  procession  through  the  streets  on  Sun- 
day, or  as  they  dragged  the  same  Christ  to  His  cross  on 
Friday.  What  better  picture  could  j^ou  have  of  that 
which  so  many  men  know  only  too  well  as  a  true  ele- 
ment in  their  internal  life  ?  Hard  earthly  prudence ; 
a  coarse  terrestrial  corner  of  our  nature,  to  which  all 
spiritual  truths  seem  to  make  their  appeal  in  vain ;  an 
iron  unsusceptibility  to  all  enthusiasm ;  a  disposition  to 
organize  life  upon  its  lower  plane,  and  to  think  of  re- 
ligious impulses  and  aspirations  only  as  the  disturbers 
of  the  peace ;  materialism  ;  selfishness ;  reason  boasting 
itself  of  its  confinement  to  its  most  terrestrial  activities  ; 
the  tyi'anny  of  sense — oh,  what  an  element  that  is  in  all 
of  us  !  How  terrible  it  is  in  some  of  us !  With  what 
cold  eyes  it  gazes  on  this  grand,  sweet,  mystic  Christ, 
who  comes  to  claim  the  nature  for  His  servant !  With 
what  ruthless,  pitUess  cruelty  it  leads  him  to  His  suffer- 
ing, and  sits  down  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  where  it  has 
hung  Him,  gambling  for  His  clothes  ! 

I  think  we  grow  to  dread  this  element  in  ourselves  and 
in  our  brethren  more  than  almost  any  of  the  others ; 
more  than  the  doubt  that  pities,  and  the  selfishness 
that  hates  the  Christ — this  hardness  on  which  it  seems 
as  if  He  could  make  no  impression  ;  this  Roman  part  of 
us  which  seems  to  have  nothiug  to  do  with  the  Christ 
whom  the  better  and  softer  part  of  our  nature  serves. 


ZZU      THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER. 

Often  we  forget  the  sneer  of  the  Sadducee  and  the  hate 
of  the  Pharisee  when  our  eye  is  caught  and  fastened  by 
that  stony  stare  of  the  Roman  soldier,  too  utterly  cold 
and  far  away  from  all  that  we  hold  dear  to  feel  either 
anger  or  scorn.  And  it  is  terrible  when  we  find  him 
even  in  ourselves. 

These  are  the  elements,  then.  Understand  that  I  have 
been  trying  to  describe,  not  the  way  in  which  many  dif- 
ferent men  receive  Christ,  but  how  in  one  same  man  all 
these  receptions  are  united.  So  Jesus  came  into  Jeru- 
salem. He  came  at  once  as  an  Intruder  and  a  King. 
There  were  men  along  the  streets  who  owed  to  Him  the 
straightness  of  their  limbs,  the  sight  of  their  eyes,  the 
clear,  sane  reason  of  their  brains.  They  made  the  old 
streets  ring  with  shouts  of  welcome.  There  were  other 
men  whom  He  had  disappointed  and  defeated.  He  had 
trampled  on  their  traditions,  contradicted  their  doc- 
trines, spoiled  their  trade.  With  muttered  curses  they 
saw  Him  go  by  in  His  triumph.  What  a  confusion ! 
The  city  was  divided  against  itself.  But  through  it  all 
Jesus  held  on  His  way,  claiming  the  town  for  His  town 
because  it  was  His  Father's.  Whether  it  owTied  His 
claim  or  spurned  it,  whether  it  welcomed  Him  or  cursed 
Him,  through  the  mixed  tumult  of  its  welcome  and  its 
curses  He  went  on  His  way,  claiming  it  all  for  His  own. 
And  so  He  claims  our  hearts.  An  Intruder  and  a  King 
at  once  He  seems  to  those  hearts  as  He  stands  there  on 
theii'  threshold.  There  is  something  in  every  one  of 
them  that  says  to  Him,  "  Come  in,  come  in  !  "  There  is 
something,  too,  in  every  one  of  them  that  rises  up  at 
His  coming  and  says,  "  Begone,  begone  !  We  wiU  not 
have  this  Man  to  rule  over  us."     But  through  their 


THE  SUNDAY  NEXT  BEFORE  EASTER.      221 

tumult,  their  struggle,  Christ,  whether  He  be  King  or 
Intruder,  whether  He  be  welcomed  or  rejected,  goes  on 
His  way,  jjressiug  on  into  each  heart's  most  secret 
places,  claiming  always  that  He  and  He  alone  is  the 
heart's  King. 

And  the  struggle  in  any  heart  cannot  keep  on  evenly 
balanced  forever.  Every  heart  has  to  decide.  Jeru- 
salem had  to  decide.  Before  the  week  was  over  she 
had  decided.  On  Friday  she  crucified  Christ.  Still 
even  round  the  cross  there  was  love  and  faith  and  lam- 
entation. But  they  were  crushed  and  only  heard  in 
sobs.  The  hatred  had  triumphed,  and  Jerusalem  had 
crucified  her  King.  And  so  must  every  Jerusalem  de- 
cide. So  must  your  heart  say  finally  to  Jesus,  "  Come  " 
or  "  Go."  He  never  will  go  until  you  obstinately  bid 
Him.  He  cannot  come  into  the  inmost  temple  until 
you  welcome  Him. 

Do  1  talk  parables  ?  Let  me  speak  plainly  as  I  can. 
The  moment  that  you  trust  Christ's  forgiveness,  and  in 
profound  gratitude  give  yourself  to  His  service,  east- 
ing every  reluctance  and  doubt  aside,  that  moment  He 
begins  the  purification  and  salvation  of  your  life  which 
shall  go  on  throughout  eternity.  May  some  one,  may 
many  of  you,  do  that  to-day. 


XV. 

PASSION  WEEK. 

"Now  is  My  soul  troubled ;  and  what  shall  I  say?  Father,  save 
Me  from  this  hour.  But  for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour. 
Father,  glorify  Thy  name." — John  xii.  27,  28. 

These  words  belong  to  this  week.  They  were  spoken 
on  that  fii'st  Palm  Sunday  when,  in  the  meekness  of 
His  majesty,  riding  over  the  garments  of  the  people  and 
the  fragrant  branches  which  they  flung  upon  His  path- 
way, the  Saviour  came  up  to  Jerusalem  to  die  the  death 
which  we  have  commemorated  to-day.  We  have  a 
right  to-day  to  all  the  lessons  they  can  teach  us.  And 
their  lessons  are  most  valuable  if  we  can  only  find  them. 

For  these  words  are  full  of  the  humanity  of  Jesus. 
"  Here  is  a  man  like  me,  fearing  death  just  as  I  fear  it,'' 
says  the  plain  man  who  reads  them.  You  would  be  sur- 
prised to  see  how  the  men  who  write  the  commentaries 
have  labored  to  make  it  out  that  it  was  something  else, 
and  not  the  death  just  before  Him,  wliich  Jesus  shrank 
from ;  to  take  away,  that  is,  the  very  sense  of  Christ's 
perfect  human  nature  which  is  the  precious  boon  these 
verses  have  to  give.  No  doubt  there  were  other  things 
to  make  the  Saviour  sad  even  as  He  rode  through  the 
hosannas  which  welcomed  Him  to  His  own  city;  but 
what  this  verse  tells  me  is  that  He  dreaded  to  die,  and 

222 


PASSION  WEEK.  223 

that  human  dread  I  claim  and  treasure  as  a  proof  of  His 
humanity.  Death  was  not  yet  conquered  by  His  death, 
and  He,  the  true  man,  shrank  from  man's  tyrant. 

Our  text  is  the  history  of  a  conflict.  We  can  see  in 
it  the  struggle  that  goes  on  in  Jesus'  nature.  Here  He 
was  at  the  very  foot  of  the  mountain  on  which  He  was 
to  die.  But  He  was  completely,  intensely  alive.  I  think 
we  must  all  feel  what  a  strange  truth  there  is  in  the  old 
traditions  of  art,  which  make  our  Lord  to  have  been 
physically  the  most  perfect  and  beautiful  of  the  sons  of 
men.  He  was  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Lord  of  life.  We 
feel  instinctively  that  life  must  have  been  in  Him  the 
most  complete  thing  possible.  And  if  life  were  preemi- 
nent in  Him,  then  the  love  of  life,  too,  must  have  as- 
serted itself  preeminently,  and  even  in  the  midst  of  all 
His  sufferings  and  sorrows  the  Lord  must  have  clung  to 
life  and  dreaded  death  with  all  the  power  of  that  great 
unreasoning  instinct  which  has  always  made  the  most 
miserable  of  li^dng  things  wail  as  if  at  a  new  misery 
when  you  threatened  it  "wdtli  death.  This  was  Christ's 
position  here.  He  stood  in  the  present.  He  was  part 
of,  ruled  by,  the  present.  Death,  with  its  untold  agony? 
the  one  unknown  which  the  Omniscient  Immortal  could 
not  know,  stood  up  before  Him.  He  trembled  at  it. 
"  Father,  save  Me  from  this  hour,"  He  cried  out.  Then, 
as  if  that  cry  to  His  Father  lifted  Him  up  to  the  divin- 
ity which  He  shared  with  Him,  He  looks  back  over  His 
eternal  history  and  rebukes  Himself :  "  But  for  this  cause 
came  I  unto  this  horn*.  What  am  I  doing?  Wliat  am 
I  saying?  Shrinking  from  death  when  I  was  born  to 
die  !     Refusing  agony  when  toward  this  agony  all  My 


224  PASSION  WEEK. 

joy  has  pointed ! "  He  looked  back,  and  lo !  all  His 
endless  life  had  been  busy  setting  up  this  cross.  He 
had  been  traveling  to  this  result  for  ages.  Should  He 
shrink  from  it  now  that  He  had  reached  it  ?  And  then 
the  whole  tone  changes,  and  He  who  had  cried,  *'  Father, 
save  Me  from  this  hour,"  cries  instead,  "  Father,  glorify 
Thy  name." 

It  is  the  genuine  history  of  a  genuine  struggle.  It  is  a 
memory  of  the  temptation,  and  an  anticipation  of  Geth- 
semane.  I  love  it  for  its  genuineness ;  for  if  Christ's 
human  life  be  the  type  of  the  life  of  aU  humanity,  then 
this  struggle  of  His  must  be  the  perfect  struggle,  rep- 
resenting ours.  It  must  include  the  way  in  which  all 
men,  from  the  assertion  of  a  human  repugnance,  pass 
by  degrees  into  an  anxiety  that  God  should  glorify  His 
name.  It  teaches  us  in  general  the  method  of  all  duty, 
or  the  process  by  which  any  man  is  led  from  an  unwill- 
ingness to  a  willingness  to  do  or  bear  God's  will.  Let 
us  give  it  our  study  to-day  from  this  point  of  view.  We 
are  standing  to-day,  as  it  were,  waiting  by  the  cross 
where  Jesus  died.  If  His  death  is  to  be  indeed  the  in- 
spiration of  all  the  duty  of  our  lives,  we  may  not  forget 
that  both  in  Him  and  in  us  duty  comes  out  of  struggle. 

This  struggle  of  Christ,  then,  tells  us  first  of  all  the 
truth  that  all  duty  must  be  its  own  revealer.  No  man 
comprehends  any  work  that  God  has  for  him  to  do  till 
the  coming  task  brings  its  own  light  with  it.  How 
strange  it  was  !  After  looking  it  in  the  face  for  years 
on  earth,  for  ages  in  His  eternal  purposes,  the  death, 
when  it  came,  seemed  to  take  the  Saviour  by  surprise, 
to  cower  and  scare  Him  with  its  suddenness.  But  as 
with  Him,  so  it  must  always  be.     No  man  can  know  a 


PASSION   WEEK.  225 

duty  till  it  liglits  itself  up  with  an  immediate  necessity, 
and  then  it  will  almost  always  surprise  and  awe  him 
with  its  unexpected  presence.  We  have  all  seen  men 
led  of  God  up  to  something  which  they  have  got  to  do. 
No  matter  what  it  be — the  giving  up  of  some  bad  habit, 
we  will  say,  the  adoption  of  some  new  self-sacrificing 
mode  of  life,  the  lifting  of  one  of  those  heavy  bundles 
of  outward  disesteem  or  inward  sorrow  which  God  lays 
sometimes  in  the  middle  of  a  man's  path  for  him  to  take 
up  and  carry  on  his  bent  back  thenceforth  until  he  dies 
— no  matter  what  it  be,  a  man  never  meets  a  great  duty 
of  the  active  or  the  passive  sort  that  it  does  not  take 
him  by  surprise.  He  shrinks  from  it — tries  bj^  an  in- 
stinct not  to  see  the  sword  that  God  holds  down  to  him 
with  its  handle  toward  his  grasp  ;  tries  to  get  round  the 
biu*den  in  his  pathway  that  he  dare  not  lift.  "These 
things  are  not  for  me,"  he  says.  ''  My  life  is  not  strung 
to  gi*eat  achievement  or  great  patience.  My  heart  is 
not  heroic.  I  am  well  enough  for  Uttle  work ;  I  shall 
fail  here.  O  Duty,  go  and  find  some  other  soul  to  dare 
thee.  I  would,  but  I  cannot.  O  God,  I  am  too  weak  ! 
Let  me  go  free ;  I  cannot  lift  Thy  burden.  Father, 
save  me  from  this  hour."  It  is  the  history  of  all  great 
action.  There  never  yet  was  a  reform  but  the  reformer 
halted  first  before  his  work.  The  world  heard  after- 
ward his  bold  and  resolute  words  falling  like  hammers 
on  the  sins  that  he  rebuked,  and  never  guessed  how  he 
had  pleaded  with  God  across  the  pages  of  His  inexorable 
Bible  to  send  another  to  set  Europe  in  a  tumult,  and 
not  him.  There  never  yet  was  a  battle  for  humanity 
but  the  great  captain  God  had  chosen  walked  his  tent 
all  the  long  night  before,  and  prayed  to  be  released,  and 


226  PASSION  WEEK. 

trembled  when  he  saw  the  sunrise.  Never  a  Moses  came 
up  yet  singing  his  triumph  at  the  head  of  his  hosts, 
through  the  piled  waters  of  the  conquered  sea,  but  that 
same  voice  that  sings  the  Jubilate  has  begged  beside  the 
burning  bush  of  his  election  that  another  and  not  he 
might  speak  to  Pharaoh  and  bring  the  people  out.  So 
it  is  always.  All  great  duty  is  a  great  sui-prise  to  the 
soul  that  must  do  it,  and  blinds  him  first  of  all  with  its 
bewildering  light.  He  stands  in  the  new  glory  with  his 
hand  before  his  eyes  and  cries,  "  Father,  save  me  from 
this  hour."  But  afterward  this  hght  becomes  a  reve- 
lation. To  the  Moses  or  the  Luther  on  whom  the  task 
is  laid  the  splendor  of  the  task  becomes  at  last  familiar, 
and  he  is  able  to  look  back  and  see  how  the  past  is  all 
lighted  up  by  it,  and  in  its  light  he  can  see  that  it  has 
been  the  centering  point  toward  which  the  currents 
of  his  unconscious  experience  have  all  been  flowing. 
Moses  still  trembles  at  the  river  he  must  cross ;  but  he 
can  see  now  that  he  was  made  to  cross  the  river.  The 
bulrushes  and  the  king's  palace  and  the  bush  on  the 
hillside  were  all  for  that.  Luther  still  dreads  to  speak 
the  first  word  that  is  going  to  defy  the  Church ;  but  he 
is  overcome  with  a  conviction  that  the  Lord  wants  His 
false  Church  defied,  and  has  made  him,  Luther,  and 
none  else,  to  defy  it.  Each  hushes  the  remonstrance  as 
he  looks  back  on  the  past.  The  danger  seems  no  less. 
The  Red  Sea  is  just  as  deep,  the  pope  is  just  as  intol- 
erant, as  ever;  but  now  each  says,  "The  Lord  who 
brought  me  here,  if  I  am  to  perish,  must  have  purposes 
in  my  perishing  too  vast  for  me  to  know.  I  am  here 
with  the  pressure  of  my  preparatory  experience  push- 
ing me  on.    I  must  do  this  duty,  if  I  die ;  for  I  see  now 


PASSION  WEEK.  227 

that  there  are  ends  higher  than  my  life.  My  soul  is 
troubled  ;  and  what  shall  I  say  f  Father,  save  me  from 
this  hoiu".  But  for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour. 
Not  that — some  higher  prayer !  "  And  then  the  soul  that 
duty  has  enUghtened  looks  up  to  God,  the  new,  strange 
work,  be  it  for  hfe  or  death,  is  seized  most  resolutely, 
and  the  soul  passes  into  a  new  petition :  "  Father,  glo- 
rify Thy  name." 

Such  is  the  method  of  all  duty.  The  great  sun  rises 
on  the  world  and  finds  it  dark.  It  stands  upon  the  hori- 
zon and  shrinks  from  its  vast  task.  It  hesitates  and 
trembles.  *' Father,  save  me  from  this  hour."  But 
then  its  past  grows  luminous  behind  it.  It  has  climbed 
these  toilsome  steps  and  reached  this  margm-Hne  just 
"for  this  cause" — just  that  it  might  light  this  gi'eat 
dark  world.  That  purpose  brought  it  where  it  is.  It 
must  not  shrink  now;  and  so  into  the  heart  of  the 
darkness,  rolling  the  flood  of  conquering  splendor  be- 
fore it  as  it  goes,  vanquishing  the  night  with  the  victori- 
ous day,  the  great  sun  goes  its  way,  honoring  its  Maker, 
daring  all  things  at  His  word,  writing  its  new  prayer 
up  and  down  the  gorgeous  sky:  "Father,  glorify  Thy 
name." 

Such  is  the  method  of  all  duty,  not  only  for  Moses 
and  for  Luther,  but  for  you  and  me.  For  duty  is  ter- 
rible, of  course,  as  it  relates  itself  to  the  measm-e  of  per- 
sonal strength — terrible  for  Daniel  to  dare  the  whole 
court  of  Darius  and  pray  three  times  a  day  to  his  own 
true  God;  just  as  terrible  for  a  school-boy  to  dare  a 
little  school-boy  like  himself  and  say  his  prayers  under 
the  terror  of  an  unseen  sneer.  But  each  in  our  own 
degree  we  have  all  come  up  to  some  great  duty  of  our 


228  PASSION  WEEK. 

life  whieli  took  us  by  surprise  and  cowed  us.  We 
looked  up  to  God  appealingly.  ''Father,  save  me  from 
this  hour."  Then  very  wondi"Ously  the  revelation  came ; 
our  past,  our  education,  became  clear.  Lo  !  it  is  right 
up  to  this  duty  Grod  has  been  leading  me.  Lo  !  for  this 
cause  came  I  to  this  hour.  What  then  ?  It  seems  a  ter- 
rible thing.  It  seems  as  if  I  could  not  survive  it.  But 
God  must  have  had  some  purpose  somewhere — if  not  for 
me,  then  for  Himself;  if  not  in  my  surviving,  then  in 
my  perishing.  Let  me  be  satisfied.  Let  me  learn  the 
better  prayer,  "  O  Father,  glorify  Thy  name."  Blessed 
is  the  Mfe  that  thus  completes  the  method  of  aU  duty. 

It  is  even  more  evident  with  the  passive  than  with 
the  active  duties.  No  duty  of  doing  frightens  and  dis- 
mays the  human  soul  like  the  duty  of  mere  suffering. 
I  know  nothing  that  will  so  cow  and  crush  a  strong, 
weU  man,  with  the  red  blood  riotous  in  his  full  veins, 
as  a  certain  conviction  coming  suddenly  upon  him  that 
his  strength  is  to  be  taken  from  him ;  that  he  is  to  be 
a  poor,  miserable,  dependent  invalid  all  the  rest  of  his 
days  until  he  dies.  Nothing  makes  a  man  cry  out  to 
die  like  that.  It  is  the  most  terrible  sight  one  ever  sees. 
A  man  is  the  strongest  among  men  one  day,  doing  every 
duty  in  his  rampant  strength ;  the  next  day  the  accident 
has  come  or  the  disease  has  smitten  him,  and  he  lies 
down  on  his  bed  which  is  to  be  his  home,  never  to  rise 
and  walk  among  men  on  earth  henceforth  forever.  We 
in  our  health  cannot  begin  to  guess  the  blank  of  his  poor 
soul.  Nothing  is  left — no  hope,  no  strength,  no  energy ; 
nothing  but  misery  to  wail  out  his  forlorn  and  fright- 
ened cry :  "  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour."  And  then 
it  is  the  most  beautiful  sight  one  ever  sees.     As  the 


PASSION   WEEK.  229 

man  lies  there  in  his  misery,  out  of  the  darkness  comes 
his  past  and  reads  itself  to  him.  Each  bright  old  year 
of  health  comes  with  its  message  of  God's  unf  orgettiug 
love.  Each  strong  deed  of  his  vigorous  youth  turns  to 
an  angel,  bringing  him  and  laying  at  his  bedside  the 
trust  which  it  accumulated.  He  slowly  sees  that  all  the 
past  of  active  duty  was  stocking  his  life  with  the  graces 
that  should  fit  him  for  these  slow  years  of  suffering  duty. 
This  bed  of  wretchedness  was  the  result  to  which  eveiy 
path  of  education  led.  Slowly  his  soul  accepts  the  les- 
son. "  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour.  Nay,  for  this 
purpose  came  I  unto  this  hour.  Father,  glorify  Thy 
name."  Then  the  hands  di'op  patiently  from  their  re- 
sistance. The  meek  lips  are  put  up  to  taste  the  bitter 
cup.  The  life  grows  happy  in  its  new  enlightenment 
of  pain. 

" '  Glory  to  God,  to  God  ! '  he  saith ; 
'Knowledge  by  suffering  entereth, 
And  life  is  perfected  by  death.'" 

So  of  bereavement  and  poverty.  So  of  everj-  cross 
the  life  is  called  to  bear.  Every  cross,  since  Christ  the 
Light  hung  upon  His,  is  a  light-giver.  O  sufferer  with 
any  nameless  agony,  rejoice  if  thy  cross  lightens  thy  life 
as  thy  Saviom-'s  did  His.  If  it  lets  you  see  the  higher 
end  of  life — that  men  and  women  were  not  born  to  live 
daintily  and  sail  smooth  waters  kissed  by  sunny  winds, 
but  to  bring  praise  to  God,  to  let  their  Father  glorify 
His  name  in  them ;  that  the  life  in  which  this  is  attained 
is  the  successful  life — if  this  has  been  revealed  to  thee 
by  suffering,  rejoice  and  glory  in  thy  every  pain  as 
Elijah  must  have  gloried  in  the  fiery  horses  that  bore 
him  up  to  God. 


230  PASSION  WEEK. 

But  what  shall  we  say  then?  Is  this  the  creed  we 
come  to — that  God's  glory  being  the  final  cause  of  all 
things,  He,  the  Maker,  just  sits  forever  in  His  glory 
and  arranges  the  world's  scenic  play  for  some  vast 
selfish  exhibition  of  Himself,  putting  the  precious  lives 
of  men  into  the  fire  to  light  up  with  then*  death-flames 
the  splendor  of  His  life,  making  ready  for  eternal  burn- 
ing a  vast  hell  where  souls  should  blaze  forever,  that 
their  agony  might  glorify  the  everlasting  throne  on 
which  He  sits?  Is  human  happiness  nothing?  Are 
we  the  puppets  and  the  pawns  of  some  design  outside 
ourselves  with  which  we  have  no  sjrmpathy,  which  we 
dimly  call  God's  glory  ?  That  were  a  heathen  thought. 
That  is  the  brutal  rehgion  of  all  heathenism — the  re- 
ligion of  the  Ganges  and  the  old  Druid  woods. 

There  was  a  heathen  old  theology  once,  in  Christian 
times  and  lands,  which  used  to  test  its  converts  with  this 
strange  demand :  "  Would  you  be  wilhng  to  be  damned 
if  it  were  necessary  for  the  glory  of  God  ?  "  Think  of 
some  earnest  soul  just  won  by  the  lovehness  of  Christ, 
and  glorying  in  its  new  hope  of  service  here  and  heaven 
hereafter,  vexed,  and  thrown  back,  and  made  desperate 
and  miserable  by  the  brutal  blasphemy  of  such  a  ques- 
tion. Hundreds  and  hundreds  were.  Surely  Christ's 
own  desire  for  His  Father's  glory  in  His  suffering  clears 
all  such  foggy  questions  away  for  us.  We  accept  in 
Him,  as  seen  in  our  text,  a  genuine  struggle.  There 
is  a  distinct  advance  from  the  first  repugnance  of  the 
flesh  to  the  final  submission  of  the  spirit.  And  we  see, 
too,  how  that  advance  was  accomplished.  He  looked 
back  and  saw  the  procession  of  His  destiny,  the  whole 
design  of  His  nature  tending  to  just  this  one  result. 


PASSION  WEEK.  231 

He  remembered  the  unspeakable  solemnity  of  the  day 
when,  over  the  ruin  of  the  fallen  world,  He,  the  pitjang 
Saviour,  when  no  redeemer  could  be  found,  stood  and 
said,  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God !  "  He  entered 
back  into  His  union  with  the  Father.  He  identified 
their  lives  again.  His  soul  mounted  up  and  stood  by 
God's  soul  and  looked  over  the  eternal  purposes  with 
Him.  And  only  then  in  this  identification,  seeing  that 
the  Father's  glory  must  be  His  advantage  too,  must  ful- 
fil His  most  treasured  plan — only  then  did  His  new  sub- 
mission utter  itself :  "  Father,  glorify  Thy  name." 

And  as  with  Jesus  so  with  every  sufferer;  so  with 
all  self-sacrifice.  Self-sacrifice  which  stops  as  such  is  a 
poor  thing,  good  for  nothing.  Man  is  made  to  be  happy 
and  to  seek  happiness.  The  only  difiPerence  of  men  is 
that  some  seek  low  happinesses  and  some  seek  higher. 
He  seeks  the  highest  who  mounts  up  to  God's  stand- 
point and  says  sublimel}',  "  God  made  me  for  some 
duty.  To  do  that  duty,  to  fulfil  that  end,  must  be  my 
nature's  liighest  perfectness,  and  so  my  nature's  high- 
est joy.  But  to  fulfil  that  end  must  be  a  glory  to  the 
God  who  made  me.  What  then  ?  If  I  can  stand  where 
He  stands,  seek  the  same  purposes,  own  the  same  laws, 
then  we  must  love  together,  hate  together,  hope  to- 
gether, work  together  with  one  same  ambition.  Then 
His  glory  must  be  my  good ;  my  good  His  glory.  The 
two  no  more  conflict  than  the  tree's  good  and  the  sun's 
glory  on  its  leaves.  The  more  the  good  tree  grows,  the 
more  the  glorious  sun  extends  his  glory  over  a  wider 
world  of  leaves.  God  and  my  soul  are  one ;  and  when 
you  ask  me  if  I  would  sacrifice  my  best  good  to  His 
best  glory  I  smile  at  the  ignorance  of  your  poor  ques- 


232  PASSION  WEEK. 

tion.  Why  vex  your  brain  conjecturing  impossibilities  ? 
The  two  are  one.  I  know  I  could  not  sacrifice  my  good 
unless  I  sacrifice  His  glory  too." 

Whatever  other  error  our  theology  contains,  let  it 
keep  clear  of  this.  Let  it  understand  Christ  and  His 
mercy  better.  Self-sacrifice  in  itself,  for  itself,  is  noth- 
ing. God  does  not  want  it.  It  does  Him  no  good, 
gives  Him  no  praise,  for  you  to  starve  yourseK,  unless 
it  does  your  soul  some  good.  Then  it  does  Him  good, 
for  His  one  earthly  glory  is  in  growing  souls.  Christ 
never  asks  me  wantonly  to  lie  down  in  the  mire  just 
that  His  chariot  wheels  may  mount  over  me  up  to  His 
throne.  Oh  no !  As  it  concerns  me,  there  is  no  glory 
that  my  Saviour*  wins  which  I  must  not  share.  If  He 
lives  I  shall  hve  also.  My  life  He  bought  He  has  bound 
fast  to  His,  and  in  the  confidence  of  my  humility  I  know 
He  will  not  enter  on  His  kingdom  without  looking 
round  as  He  goes  in  for  the  poor  sinner  to  whom  He 
spoke  the  promise,  speaking  from  cross  to  cross,  from 
His  to  mine.  Whatever  else  we  let  go,  let  us  cling  to 
this — the  necessary  connection  of  our  triumph  with  oui' 
Redeemer's. 

"  This  one  thing  I  know : 
We  two  are  so  joined, 
He'll  not  be  in  glory 
And  leave  me  behind." 

Does  not  this  explain  to  us  the  whole  theory  of  sub- 
missive prayer,  making  it  very  clear  ?  There  are  two 
conceivable  states  of  things  in  each  of  which  prayer 
would  be  superfluous.  In  the  first  it  would  be  needless, 
in  the  second  it  would  be  useless.     Prayer  would  be 


PASSION   WEEK.  233 

needless  if  man  were  entire  master  of  his  own  good,  sole 
and  sufficient  doer  of  what  was  best  for  him ;  if  human 
good,  that  is,  were  the  one  end  of  being,  and  man  liad 
within  himself  the  wisdom  and  the  power  to  attain  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  prayer  would  be  useless  if  man's  best 
good  were  not  considered  in  the  government  of  things ; 
if  God  were  just  some  great  Oriental  despot,  absorbing 
in  His  own  selfish  splendor  all  the  purposes  of  His  vast 
tributary  realm.  Pure  humanitarianism  and  pure  fatal- 
ism can  neither  of  them  pray.  But  let  us  have  a  world 
where  these  two  purposes  work  on  harmoniously,  the 
Creator's  glory  and  the  creature's  good  being  like 
sound  and  echo,  like  sunlight  and  reflection  to  each 
other;  where  every  advance  in  one  chronicles  and  re- 
peats itself  in  the  other.  Let  man  by  sovereign  mercy 
be  admitted  into  such  an  intimacy  with  his  Grod,  and 
then  prayer — what  is  it  ?  What  but  the  answer  of  the 
echo  to  the  sound,  the  uttered  sympathy  of  the  one  com- 
mon life,  man  responding  to  God's  "  Be  happy,  O  my 
child ! "  with  an  ever  grateful  and  reverent "  Be  glorious, 
O  my  Father !  "  As  we  go  up  higher  in  the  new  life 
prayer  becomes  less  servile  and  so  becomes  more  true. 
When  the  new  life  is  finished,  the  sympathy  complete 
in  heaven,  who  can  say  what  prayer  will  be?  It  will 
be  what  Christ's  was,  in  His  perfect  humanity  talking 
with  the  perfect  Divinity  to  which  it  stood  so  near. 
Thei-e  will  be  no  wandering  eyes,  no  listless  thoughts, 
no  formal  words,  no  hearts  that  pray  because  they  must ; 
but  souls  alight  with  a  new  likeness  shall  leap  into  a 
new  nearness  to  their  God,  and  prayer  be  heaven  to  the 
perfected  human  life.  God's  glor^^  and  man's  good — 
who  will  divide  them  there  ?     The  struggle  wiU  be  over 


234  PASSION   WEEK. 

when  our  blindness  clears  away ;  and  when  we  want  to 
ask  the  best  boon  for  ourselves,  what  shall  it  be  but 
that  which  we  used  to  pray  with  groans  and  tears  of 
hard  submission :  "  Father,  glorify  Thy  name  "  ? 

Two  other  suggestions  or  illustrations  of  our  text 
remain,  of  which  I  will  very  briefly  speak.  The  lesson 
of  Palm  Sunday,  Christ  in  view  of  His  death  accepting 
His  Father's  glory  as  His  own  best  good,  will  always  be 
a  spectacle  full  of  instruction  and  help  to  dying  men. 
The  struggle  which  our  Lord  passed  through  will  al- 
ways be  the  struggle  of  ever}^  life  before  it  is  reconciled 
to  the  necessity  of  death.  Man  loves  to  live  and  hates 
to  die.  It  is  not  wrong.  It  is  a  part  of  his  humanity. 
It  is  one  development  of  his  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion. I  believe  that  with  every  well,  healthy  man,  with 
work  to  do  in  the  world,  an  intense  desii-e  to  live  and 
do  it,  an  intense  dishke  at  the  thought  of  giving  it  up 
and  going  away,  is  the  healthiest  and  most  Christian 
state;  that  any  other  condition  is  for  him  unhealthy 
and  unchristian,  however  pious  and  devotional  it  may 
appear.  When  death  rises  up  suddenly,  full  in  the 
path  of  a  live,  vigorous  man,  and  puts  its  cold  hand 
out  to  draw  him  to  itself,  I  believe  the  natiu-al  cry  of  the 
true  human  heart  is,  *'  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour." 
And  even  when  sickness  comes,  and  the  work  has  to  be 
laid  aside,  and  the  road  is  evidently  inevitably  sloping 
downward  to  the  grave,  still  the  life  fears  to  die.  The 
last  enemy  has  still  his  terrors.  Heaven  is  beautiful, 
but  death  lies  between.  Oh,  if  there  were  but  some 
escape,  some  way  to  pass  dry-shod  over  the  river  and 
be  saints,  otherwise  than  by  the  pain  of  dying !     And 


PASSION  ^VEEK.  235 

then  to  the  human  soul,  as  to  Christ's  soul,  comes  the 
revelation.  Death,  as  the  Christian  comes  up  near  to  it, 
shows  what  it  really  is — the  gathering  up  of  the  issues 
of  life,  the  sublime  grouping  and  grasping  together  in 
God's  great  hand  of  all  the  results  of  one  period  of 
being,  that  they  may  be  handed  over  into  another.  It 
is  the  concentration  or  bringing  to  a  focus  of  all  the 
forces  of  the  first  life,  that  they  may  thence  be  reex- 
panded  and  spread  out  into  the  second.  It  is  the  point 
to  which  aU  earth  has  been  struggling,  that  it  might 
thence  embark  for  heaven.  Let  a  man  see  this  and  all 
is  plain.  "  Lo  !  for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour," 
the  soul  cries  out  in  the  new  revelation  it  receives ;  "  this 
is  what  I  have  been  living  for."  As  the  scholar  studies 
for  his  graduation,  as  the  twihght  hurries  to  the  dawn, 
so  truly  "  life  is  perfected  by  death " ;  and  in  his  new 
intelligence  the  man,  not  simply  resigned  to  a  necessity, 
but  rejoicing  in  a  privilege,  lies  and  awaits  his  change, 
praying  always,  "  Father,  glorify  Thy  name." 

Paul  tells  of  Christians  who  "through  fear  of  death 
are  all  their  lifetime  subject  to  bondage."  There  are 
some  men  and  women  who  haunt  their  lives  and  make 
them  cheerless,  for  fear  they  will  not  be  able  to  meet 
the  king  of  terrors  when  he  comes.  I  presume  there  are 
some  such  here  to-day.  Dear  friends,  learn  from  yom* 
Saviour  that  no  duty  reveals  itself  till  we  approach  it. 
The  duty  of  death,  when  you  approach  it,  will  light 
itself  up,  you  may  be  sure,  and  seem  very  easy  to  yoiu* 
soul.  TiU  then  do  not  trouble  yourself  about  it.  To 
live,  and  not  to  die,  is  your  work  now.  When  your 
time  comes  the  Christ  who  conquered  death  will  prove 
Himself  its  Lord,  and  pave  the  narrow  river  to  a  sea  of 


236  PASSION  WEEK. 

glass  for  you  to  cross.  The  work  of  life  is  living,  and 
not,  as  we  are  so  often  told,  preparing  to  die,  except  by 
living  well. 

And  again,  this  general  truth  of  the  method  of  duty 
touches  not  merely  the  method  of  death,  but  even  more 
directly  the  method  of  conversion.  No  man  grown 
mature  in  sin  comes  easily  from  the  darkness  into  the 
blinding  and  bewildering  hght  of  the  higher  hf  e.  Every 
soul  cries  out  when  it  fii'st  sees  the  Saviom*.  Even 
when  it  owns  Him  it  begs  Him  to  depart,  like  the  devils 
among  the  tombs.  "  What  have  we  to  do  with  Thee,  O 
Christ  ?  Ai't  Thou  come  to  torment  us  before  the  time  ? 
Father,  save  us  from  this  horn*."  There  are  some  such 
in  this  church.  They  ought  to  be  Christians ;  they  know 
they  ought  to  be,  but  they  do  not  want  to  be.  Jesus 
holds  them  only  by  the  sheer  spell  of  duty.  They 
would  hke  to  be  away,  but  they  cannot.  His  supreme, 
essential  Lordship  holds  them  where  His  love  has  failed. 
What  shall  they  do  ?  I  tell  you,  my  dear  friend,  aU  you 
need  is  a  little  clearer  light.  "Father,  save  me  from 
this  hour;  let  me  go  unsaved."  Is  that  your  prayer? 
Why,  for  this  cause — ^just  that  you  might  be  saved — 
for  this  cause  came  you  unto  this  hour !  If  you  would 
only  look  back  you  would  see  that  it  is  no  sudden 
emergency  in  which  Christ  has  set  you,  but  that  in  all 
your  past  life  He  has  been  evidently,  though  most  un- 
consciously, leading  you  to  Himself,  and  now  only  asks 
you  to  complete  the  process.  He  has  been  leading  you 
in  the  dark,  gently,  tenderly,  because  your  eyes  were 
blind.  Now  His  daylight  dawns  and  you  see  whither 
He  has  led  you ;  you  see  where  He  has  set  you — right 
at  a  duty's  door,  right  before  some  great  unmistakable 


PASSION  WEEK.  237 

obligation:  of  giving  up  the  world,  of  setting  about 
Christ's  service,  of  becoming  an  open  member  of  His 
Chui'ch.  No  one  can  wonder — He  does  not  wonder — 
that  you  shrink  from  the  newness  of  the  task.  "  Father, 
save  me  from  this  hom\"  But  you  cannot  escape  it  so. 
"For  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour."  And  what 
then?  The  willing  submission,  soon  or  late,  must 
come.  "Father,  glorify  Thy  name.  Make  of  me,  do 
with  me,  what  Thou  wilt."  And  then  the  weak  hands 
are  put  out  to  push  the  heavy  doors  of  duty  back,  and 
through  the  hght  that  lies  upon  the  other  side  of  them 
your  submissive  soul  passes  into  the  gradual  heaven  of 
obedience.  That  is  the  struggle  and  the  triumph  of 
God's  best  conversions.     God  grant  it  may  be  yours. 

This,  then,  is  the  lesson  of  our  Master's  struggle. 
The  same  Saviour  who  came  in  the  morning  over  the 
Mount  of  OHves,  heralded  by  hosannas,  treading  the 
palm-branches  and  the  people's  garments  under  His 
ass's  feet — here  He  is  in  the  evening  struggling  with 
His  destiny,  and  leaving  us  an  eternal  pattern  of  stead- 
fastness :  "  Now  is  My  soul  troubled ;  and  what  shaE  I 
say  ?  Father,  save  Me  from  this  hour.  But  for  this  cause 
came  I  unto  this  hour.     Father,  glorify  Thy  name." 

It  teaches  us  that  struggle  is  not  wrong.  It  is  inev- 
itable. To  be  weak  and  tempted  is  not  wicked.  It  is 
himian — that  is  all.     Jesus  was  tempted  too. 

It  is  so  hard  to  do  right,  you  say.  Yes,  of  course  it 
is ;  and  the  soul  that  tries  to  do  right  does  wrong  so 
constantly.  But  then  it  is  so  glorious — glorious  to  do 
right  through  struggle ;  glorious  to  mount  from  the 
lower  to  the  higher  life,  and  seeing  how  God  has  bound 


238  PASSION   WEEK. 

our  perfection  to  His  own,  have  but  one  confident  prayer 
for  both :  not,  "  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour  " — from 
any  hour,  however  hard  it  be — but  "Father,  glorify 
Thy  name." 

And  as  to  Christ  when  He  prayed,  so  often  to  us, 
sharers  not  only  of  His  struggle,  but  of  His  triumph, 
there  shall  come  a  voice  from  heaven,  saying,  "  I  have 
both  glorified  it,  and  will  glorify  it  now  again  in  thee." 
Who  cannot  dare  all  things  and  bear  all  things  in  the 
celestial  courage  of  that  promise  ? 


XVI. 
THURSDAY   BEFORE  EASTER. 

"  And  He  cometh,  and  findeth  them  sleeping,  and  saith  unto 
Peter,  Simon,  sleepest  thou?  couldest  not  thou  watch  one  hour?  " 
— Mark  xiv.  37. 

The  disciples  of  Jesus  failed  Him  just  when  He  needed 
them  the  most.  The  end  was  drawing  very  near,  and 
on  this  night  before  His  crucifixion  their  Lord  had 
taken  Peter,  James,  and  John  into  the  garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  and  while  He  was  wrestling  with  His  agony 
they  had  fallen  asleep.  Once  and  again  Jesus  comes 
back  to  them  and  finds  them  sleeping.  There  is  some- 
thing very  touching  in  the  tone  of  disappointment  and 
surprise  with  which  He  speaks  to  them.  He  knew 
them  thoroughly.  He  knew  man  in  general,  and  He 
had  known  specially  these  three  men,  with  their  special 
characters  and  weaknesses,  through  all  these  last  years 
of  their  life  together.  TVTien  He  led  them  into  the  gar- 
den He  must  have  seen  the  dimness  gathering  in  their 
eyes,  and  known  that  they  would  go  to  sleep.  But  by 
and  by,  when  He  comes  to  them  and  finds  them  sleep- 
ing, He  is  full  of  surprise.  He  seems  to  be  as  much  sur- 
prised as  if  He  had  expected  to  find  them  wide  awake. 
Is  there  not  here  a  suggestion  or  reminder  of  how  differ- 
ent are  different  kinds  of  knowledge  ?     There  is  a  kind 

239 


240  THURSDAY   BEFORE  EASTER. 

of  knowledge,  a  certain  final  sort  of  conviction,  which 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  cannot  come  except  by- 
personal  experience.  However  Jesus  may  know  that  His 
disciples  will  fail  Him  and  sleep  while  He  is  struggling 
there  is  a  perfect  conviction  of  theii*  weakness  which  can 
come  to  Him  only  when  He  actually  sees  them  tying 
helpless  on  the  ground ;  and  when  that  perfect  convic- 
tion comes,  however  sure  His  knowledge  may  have  al- 
ready seemed  to  be,  it  is  a  shock  and  a  surprise.  This 
is  something  that  we  can  understand.  There  is  a  full- 
est knowledge  of  all  the  things  which  touch  us  closest 
which  can  come  to  us  only  with  their  actual  touch. 
You  know  that  something  which  you  are  going  to  do 
will  certainly  estrange  from  you  one  who  has  been  your 
closest  friend.  You  are  perfectly  sure  that  he  will  mis- 
understand you  and  cast  you  off  as  his  enemy  when  he 
hears  what  you  have  done.  But  when  you  actually 
see  his  angry  face  and  feel  liis  angry  words  like  blows 
poured  out  upon  you,  then  it  seems  as  if  you  had  not 
known  at  all  before  what  now  comes  overwhelming  you 
with  such  surprise.  You  know,  as  it  seems,  with  per- 
fect certainty,  that  the  discontent  which  fills  the  land 
will  make  rebellion ;  but  when  at  last  the  rebellion 
comes,  the  signal-gun  is  fii-ed,  and  all  the  land  is  in  con- 
sternation, your  horror  is  as  gi'eat  as  if  the  lightning 
had  fallen  from  a  cloudless  sky.  Your  friend  is  very 
sick.  For  days  and  days  you  know  that  he  must  die. 
You  stand  by  his  bedside  listening  for  his  last  gasp.  At 
last  he  dies ;  and  oh,  you  all  know  how  suddenly  death 
comes  even  to  all  those  who  think  they  are  expecting 
it  most  surely.  Of  all  these  closest  things  there  is  a 
closest  knowledge  which  cannot  come  until  the  touch 


THmSDAY   BEFORE   EASTER.  241 

is  actually  laid  upon  the  quivering  nerve.  This  truth 
seems  to  me  to  throw  light  upon  some  things  in  the  ex- 
perience of  Jesus  which  sometimes  puzzle  us.  Did  He 
know  beforehand  what  was  to  happen  to  Him,  or  not  ? 
If  He  did,  there  is  a  look  of  flatness  and  unreahty  about 
His  human  life.  It  loses  all  the  fi'eshness  and  interest 
and  spontaneousness  which  give  our  human  lives  their 
meaning  and  their  charm.  But  if  He  did  not  know 
what  was  to  come  to  Him,  did  not  know  that  John  was 
going  to  follow  Him,  and  that  Judas  was  going  to  be- 
tray Him,  and  that  Herod  was  going  to  mock  Him,  and 
that  the  Jews  were  going  to  crucify  Him,  then  where  is 
His  wisdom  and  di\inity  ?  Does  not  the  truth,  in  part 
at  least,  he  here  ? — that  there  is  a  kind  of  knowledge  of 
Judas's  treason  which  not  even  Jesus  can  have  till  He 
feels  the  cold  kiss  of  the  traitor  on  His  cheek ;  there  is 
a  kind  of  knowledge  of  John's  love  which  cannot  come 
until  He  feels  the  disciple's  head  upon  His  bosom ;  there 
is  a  knowledge  of  Herod's  scorn  and  of  the  Jews'  hatred 
which  the  di\'ine  heart  cannot  gather  except  out  of  the 
sneering  lips  and  flashing  eyes  of  His  persecutors  in  the 
hour  of  theii*  triumph.  All  the  divine  foresight  with 
which  through  the  ages  Christ  looked  forward  to  His 
life  on  earth,  and  all  the  human  sui-prise  and  thrill  of 
pain  and  joy  with  which  at  last  He  met  the  events  of 
that  hfe  when  it  arrived — both  of  these  become  plain, 
and  not  in  any  way  contradictory  of  each  other,  as 
soon  as  we  let  oirrselves  discriminate  between  the  know- 
ledge which  is  and  the  knowledge  which  is  not  possible 
without  experience. 

And  this  helps  us  to  understand  perhaps  another 
puzzle.     We  are  taught  to  think — we  cannot  well  help 


242  THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER. 

thinking — of  Christ  our  Master  as  standing  over  us 
and  watching  oiir  lives,  pleased  when  we  are  good,  and 
disappointed,  with  a  disappointment  that  seems  to  have 
some  necessary  mixture  of  surprise  in  it,  when  we  do 
wrong.  And  yet  how  can  this  he,  we  sometimes  think, 
if  He  knows  all  beforehand,  if  He  sees  perfectly  and  un- 
mistakably just  how  we  are  to  yield  to  or  resist  every 
temptation  of  our  lives  ?  Must  we  not  lose  that  whole 
dear  and  affecting  picture  of  the  Saviour  waiting  and 
watching  anxiously  to  see  what  we  will  do  with  our 
lives,  expecting  and  looking  to  see  of  the  travail  of  His 
soul,  glad  when  we  do  right,  and  sorry,  with  a  true  con- 
temporaneous grief,  when  we  are  wicked  ?  I  dare  not 
think  that  I  can  solve  all  that  mystery — nobody  can. 
But  if  what  I  have  said  is  true,  there  certainly  must  be 
a  certain  kind  of  knowledge  of  your  goodness  or  your 
sin  which  cannot  come  to  Jesus  until  the  goodness  or 
the  wickedness  is  actually  done,  no  matter  how  surely 
He  may  have  known  before  that  you  were  going  to  be 
good  or  to  be  wicked.  No  prophetic  foresight  can  steal 
the  freshness  from  that  moment  when  at  last  the  actual 
fact  becomes  genuinely  present  in  the  world.  Do  right 
to-day,  and,  long  as  God  has  known  and  prepared  for 
your  victory  over  this  particular  temptation,  it  is  still 
your  privilege  to  know  that  God  is  glad.  Do  wrong  to- 
day, and  in  some  true  sense,  some  sense  in  which  the 
capacity  of  sorrow  must  be  present  in  the  perfect  nature, 
God  is  sorry.  For  to  God,  as  to  us,  aU  things  of  real- 
est,  closest  interest  must  come  at  last  with  a  surprise 
and  freshness,  however  long  beforehand  their  coming 
has  been  known. 
.  I  have  dwelt  longer  than  I  meant  upon  this  opening 


THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER.  243 

thoug:ht  of  the  surprise  of  Jesus  at  His  disciples'  failure. 
But  it  is  that  failure  itself  that  I  really  want  to  study. 
Here,  at  the  very  crisis  of  His  need,  He  found  them 
wanting.  It  was  not  simply  that  they  f  eU  asleep — that 
might  be  only  physical  exhaustion.  Their  sleeping  was 
only  a  part  of  the  experience  of  the  whole  night  of  their 
Mastei^'s  trial.  By  and  by,  after  a  moment's  outburst 
of  Peter's  fruitless  anger,  when  he  cut  off  the  high 
priest's  servant's  ear,  they  all  forsook  their  Loi'd  and  fled. 
Drawn  to  Him  still,  even  although  he  would  not  own 
Him,  Peter  still  lingers  around  the  place  where  Christ 
is  being  tried,  and  there  at  last  denies  Him,  Not  one  of 
them  is  ready  to  stand  by  his  Master  bravely  and  help 
Him  carry  His  heavy  cross  from  Gabatha  to  Golgotha. 
Only  one  of  them — His  best  beloved,  and  the  least  un- 
faithful of  them  all — creeps  to  the  cross's  side  and  lin- 
gers there  until  the  last.  That  utter  failure  of  the  dis- 
ciples on  the  night  of  Christ's  gi'eat  trial  is  one  of  the 
strangest  and  most  significant  events  in  all  the  Gospel 
story.  When  He  needed  them  most  He  looked  for  them 
in  vain.  When  aU  the  love  and  devotion  and  courage 
which  He  had  been  training  in  them  were  wanted  for 
the  instant's  work  they  seemed  to  scatter  into  air. 
"  Lord,  I  will  follow  Thee  to  death,"  the  brave  disciple 
had  said  with  perfect  sincerity  immediately  before. 
And  when  death  loomed  up  in  the  distance  and  seemed 
to  be  coming  down  upon  him  he  dropped  his  trembling 
hands  and  cried,  "  I  do  not  know  Him." 

Is  it  a  story  which  we  can  understand  anything 
about  from  our  own  experience?  Certainly  we  can. 
Sometimes  a  crisis,  a  great  demand,  seems  to  concen- 
trate and  intensify  a  resolution  or  a  faith.     What  was 


244  THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER. 

vague  and  half  formed  before  sometimes  becomes,  as  it 
were  in  an  instant,  under  the  pressure  of  a  sudden  need, 
solid,  compact,  and  strong.  The  man  who  did  not  know 
how  he  could  possibly  meet  the  enemy  to-morrow,  when 
to-morrow  comes,  and  the  enemy  stands  clear  before 
him,  is  often  amazed  at  himself  as  he  feels  the  courage, 
strong  as  a  lion's,  filling  his  heart.  But  everybody 
knows  that  there  is  another  power  in  a  critical  moment 
which  is  just  the  opposite  of  this.  Sometimes  we  have  all 
felt  how  the  moment  of  supreme  need  paralyzes  instead 
of  inspiring,  and  we  are  weak  as  water  just  when  the 
moment  comes  when  all  the  strength  which  we  thought 
was  crystalhzing  into  iron  in  us  is  wanted  for  its  work. 
It  is  easy  and  common  enough  to  say,  with  this  strange 
difference  in  mind,  that  the  hour  of  need  is  the  hour  of 
test ;  that  all  the  strength  wliich  has  been  gathering  in 
quiet  hours  comes  to  its  trial  in  these  hours  of  demand 
and  shows  what  it  is  really  worth.  And  no  doubt  there 
is  truth  in  this ;  but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth,  for  we 
know  very  well,  from  what  we  have  seen  in  others,  from 
what  we  have  felt  in  ourselves,  that  the  giving  way  of 
strength  in  the  time  of  critical  need  does  not  by  any 
means  prove  either  that  what  seemed  to  be  real  strength 
was  unreal  and  a  delusion,  or  that  the  shock  of  the  crisis 
has  destroyed  it  so  that  it  will  not  be  seen  any  more. 
On  the  contrary,  many  of  us  have  known  that  men  who 
seemed  to  break  down  most  completely  under  some 
strain  upon  their  resolution  or  their  faith  have  come 
out  by  and  by  all  the  more  faithful  and  courageous  for 
their  failure.  Alas  if  it  were  not  so !  Alas  if  every 
time  that  the  strength  of  any  of  us  yielded  under  any 
task  it  were  a  certain  sign  either  that  what  we  had 


THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER.  245 

been  calling  strength  was  weakness,  or  that  our  feeble 
strength  had  died  of  the  overstrain  !  It  would  fill  our 
lives  with  hours  of  terrible  despair  if  we  had  to  believe 
either  of  these  things.  No,  we  have  to  feel  that  a  time 
of  critical  demand  for  any  power,  a  time  of  emergency 
which  calls  for  the  fullest  exercise  of  any  power,  has  a 
double  function  as  regards  the  present  possession  of  that 
power  by  the  man  to  whom  the  crisis  comes.  It  is  both 
a  test  and  an  education.  And  the  failui-e  of  the  man 
to  respond  with  the  power  to  the  need  may  mean,  not 
necessarily  that  the  man  has  not  the  power,  though  it 
must  mean  that  his  possession  of  it  is  imperfect,  but  it 
may  mean,  also,  that  the  power  in  him  is  just  exactly 
in  that  state  where  it  needs  the  self -revelation  and  the 
rebuke  which  wiU  come  by  this  failm-ej  that  it  is  in 
passage,  as  it  were,  from  one  condition  into  a  higher 
condition ;  and  that  in  this  very  failure  there  may  be 
the  force  which  wiU  produce  its  new  birth  and  its 
higher  life. 

There  might  be  countless  iUus'trations  of  this.  Illus- 
trations will  abound  in  every  region  where  strains  that 
are  too  strong  for  them  to  bear  fall  upon  the  courage 
or  the  principle  of  men  or  states  or  chm*ches.  An  at- 
tack is  made  upon  a  nation's  central  principle — on  the 
idea  by  which  she  lives — in  some  great  outbreak  of  re- 
bellion. When  the  nation  reels  under  the  shock,  and 
trembles  to  her  base,  what  does  it  mean?  Certainly 
that  she  is  not  perfectly  mistress  of  and  perfectly  mas- 
tered by  her  great  idea ;  but  often,  also,  as  we  know  full 
weU,  that  she  has  just  so  far  attained  to  her  idea  that 
she  is  ready  to  go  on  to  a  new  degree  of  attainment, 
and  that  that  new  degree  of  attainment  can  be  reached 


246  TBURSPAY  BEFORE  EASTER. 

only  through  this  apparent  f  aikire  and  the  illumination 
and  exposure  which  it  brings. 

There  are  illustrations  which  will  come  more  closely 
home  to  your  own  life.  Some  of  you  who  are  here  to- 
day have  known  what  it  is  to  have  your  Christian 
faith  so  shaken  that  it  seemed  to  be  overthrown.  Just 
when  you  needed  that  it  should  stand  firm  as  a  column 
set  into  the  rock,  so  that  you  might  cUng  to  it  with  your 
smitten  and  trembling  life,  just  then,  to  your  complete 
dismay,  you  felt  it  begin  to  reel  and  totter,  so  that  you 
had  to  struggle  to  hold  it  up  at  the  very  time  when  it 
ought  to  be  strongly  holding  you.  Some  of  you,  I 
know,  have  come  to  understand  the  meaning  of  that 
experience.  Certainly  it  meant  that  your  hold  upon 
your  faith  was  not  complete,  but  certainly  it  did  not 
mean  that  you  had  no  hold  on  faith.  Rather  it  may 
have  meant — it  may  be  that  you  can  see  now  that  it 
meant — that  your  faith  had  grown  just  to  that  point 
where  it  was  only  by  questionings  which  went  to  its 
very  roots  and  seemed  to  leave  nothing  for  it  to  stand 
upon,  only  by  deep  probings  which  exposed  its  weak- 
nesses and  seemed  to  leave  it  no  life  at  all,  that  it  could 
pass  up  and  on  into  a  higher  region  of  assurance  and 
completeness.  I  know  that  there  are  some  among  you 
who  look  back  now  and  clearly  see  that  it  was  in  some 
terrible  time  when  they  appeared  to  have  no  faith  that 
God  was  i-eally  rebuilding  the  foundations  of  faith 
within  them  for  a  new  structure  which  now  it  is  their 
daily  joy  to  feel  growing  and  growing. 

Now  it  is  this  second  power  of  the  failure  which 
comes  at  the  critical  times  of  life  which  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  real  key  to  the  story  of  the  apostles  sleeping 


THURSDAY   BEFORE  EASTER.  247 

in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  just  when  their  Master 
needed  them  the  most.  No  doubt  their  failure  showed 
the  weaJiness  of  their  loyalty ;  but  in  a  still  more  real 
sense  it  was  the  education  of  their  loyalty  to  Jesus.  It 
seems  to  me  that  their  devotion  to  Him  had  reached 
just  the  point  where  it  was  ready  to  become  something 
a  great  deal  higher  and  finer  and  more  spiritual  than  it 
had  been  thus  far,  and  that  the  only  way  in  which  it 
could  really  mount  up  and  attain  that  higher  life  was  by 
just  some  such  failure  and  exposure  as  it  went  through 
upon  that  night  of  crisis.  Certainly  their  failui-e  to 
be  true  to  Him  had  nothing  wanton  or  dehberate  about 
it.  They  were  asleep.  They  did  not  plot  against  Him. 
Here  is  just  the  difference  between  Peter  and  Judas. 
Indeed,  all  through  that  night  the  disciples  seem  to 
me  to  be  dazed  and  bewildered.  They  are  like  men 
stunned.  They  move  about  almost  as  in  a  di-eam. 
And  if  they  fail  of  the  duty  for  which  brave  men 
ought  to  be  ready — as  certainly  they  do — it  is  rather  by 
their  powers  being,  as  it  were,  out  of  connection  with 
their  wills,  as  a  man's  are  when  he  is  dazed  or  dream- 
ing, than  because  they  deliberately  consider  and  choose 
with  their  wills  not  to  use  them. 

Now  notice  how  common  a  condition  this  is  between 
two  periods  in  hfe,  or  in  the  development  of  any  of  a 
man's  powers.  How  often  in  transition  periods  there 
seems  to  be  a  kind  of  temporary  pause  and  inaction  in 
the  faculties  which  are  just  about  passing  over  into  a 
higher  state  and  a  completer  use  !  You  have  seen  how 
a  stream  which  has  been  flowing  between  sunny  banks, 
lapsing  along  in  peaceful,  quiet  current,  and  which  is 
just  going  to  enter  on  a  new  experience  and  be  hurled 


248  THURSDAY   BEFORE  EASTER. 

headlong  over  the  dam  to  fall  white  and  tumultuous  into 
the  depths  below — you  have  seen  how,  between  the  two, 
after  its  smooth  journey  through  the  sunny  woods  is 
over,  and  before  its  larger,  more  excited  life  begins,  it 
pauses  and  lies  motionless  in  a  black,  brooding  pool, 
and  seems  in  stillness  to  be  making  itself  ready  for  the 
plunge.  There  are  many  such  times  as  that  in  human 
life.  Perhaps  the  time  that  seems  most  hke  it  comes  in 
a  young  man's  life  when,  his  boyhood  over  and  his  ac- 
tive manhood  not  begun,  he  seems  to  pause  and  brood 
upon  the  brink  of  life,  and  something  almost  like  paraly- 
sis seems  to  fall  down  upon  his  faculties  of  faith  and 
action.  I  am  sure  that  many  of  you  will  recognize  the 
phenomenon  which  I  describe.  A  human  creature  who, 
as  a  boy,  has  been  full  of  activity,  and  who  is  going  to 
be  fuller  still  of  a  yet  higher  activity  in  a  few  years  as 
a  man,  comes  to  a  stage  between  these  two  activities 
when  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time  he  can  do  nothing. 
Before  he  easily  made  up  his  mind  in  an  instant ;  now, 
when  the  most  important  decisions  are  waiting  to  be 
made,  he  can  make  no  decision.  Before  his  convic- 
tions were  as  clear  as  sunUght ;  now  he  is  sure  of  noth- 
ing, least  of  aU  of  Lis  own  doubts.  Before  he  cared 
quickly  about  ever5i;hing  that  touched  him,  was  sym- 
pathetic and  responsive ;  now  his  interests  are  hard  to 
waken  and  he  is  contemptuous  about  a  great  many 
things.  Before  he  was  easily  hopeful ;  now  he  finds  it 
very  easy  to  despair.  It  is  not  universal,  but  it  is  com- 
mon enough  to  make  one  try  to  understand  its  meaning. 
It  is  the  pause  of  hfe  before  it  starts  on  its  full  career. 
It  is  the  perplexity  and  confusion  before  the  opening  of 
the  higher  certainty.    It  is  the  uncertain  dusk  between 


THURSDAY   BEFORE  EASTER.  249 

the  starlight  and  the  sunlight.     It  is  the  pool  before 
the  plunge. 

Now  in  a  good  many  respects  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
seem  to  me  to  have  been  young  men,  just  coming  of 
age  in  their  discipleship  upon  that  night  of  confusion 
and  distress,  when  they  seemed  to  be  so  paralyzed  and 
helpless.  They  had  been  childi-en  before,  wide  awake, 
observant  of  everything  their  Master  did,  ready  to  stand 
up  for  Him  to  any  one  who  chose  to  question  them. 
They  were  to  be  men  by  and  by,  alert  to  seek  for  truth 
or  duty,  compelling  themselves  with  a  man's  conscien- 
tiousness to  watch  for  their  Lord's  interests,  and  quick 
to  answer  out  of  a  long  experience  and  study  all  the 
taunts  of  scoffers  and  the  earnest  questions  of  in- 
quiring spirits.  But  now,  between  the  two,  upon  this 
night  of  terror,  they  were  dazed  and  sleepy  with  the 
surprising  change  that  was  upon  them ;  and  when  men 
asked  them  questions  about  Jesus  they  had  nothing  to 
say,  or  answered  in  confused  and  clumsy  falsehoods. 
One  hour  Peter  wants  to  fight  for  Jesus.  A  few  hours 
later  he  is  saying  that  he  never  knew  Him.  And  al- 
most instantly  after  that  he  is  prostrate  in  the  darkness, 
weeping  tears  which  are  neither  a  child's  tears  nor  a 
man's  tears,  but  belong  to  that  period  of  dismay  and 
confusion,  of  terror  at  one's  self  and  one's  own  possibil- 
ities, of  tender-heartedness  and  wounded  pride,  of  mis- 
ery, despair,  and  hope,  all  mixed  together,  which  belong 
exactly  to  that  strange  period  which  comes  between  the 
childliood  and  the  manhood  and  makes  the  most  inter- 
esting and  bewildering  episode  of  many  of  the  best 
human  lives.  I  think  that  very  many  of  the  best  young 
men,  of  those  who  by  and  by  make  the  best  success  of 


250  THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER. 

life,  pass  through  a  time  when  they  and  their  lives  seem 
to  be  wretched  failures.  And  in  their  time  of  failure, 
they  often  find  afterward,  has  lain  the  seed  of  their 
success.  It  was  in  this  night  of  failure  that  the  seed 
lay  of  the  spiritual  success  which  these  disciples  gained 
when  they  had  come  to  be  completely  men  in  Christ. 

To  us  who  know  the  later  history  of  these  disciples  it 
is  quite  evident  what  was  the  character  of  the  change 
and  progress  which  was  taking  place  in  them  in  those 
critical  days  of  confusion  and  distress.  In  one  word, 
they  were  passing  on  to  a  completer  knowledge  of 
Christ.  Christ  is  so  natural  to  the  soul  of  man,  so  in- 
trinsically its  true  Master,  that  when  a  man  once  knows 
Him  and  has  to  do  with  Him,  the  changes  and  progress 
of  that  man's  life  may  afterward  be  aU  noted  and  mea- 
sured by  his  relationship  to  Jesus.  And  these  disciples 
were  attaining  a  growth,  coming  to  a  maturity,  of  which 
the  sign  and  measure  for  us  is  the  new  and  enlarged 
and  deepened  thought  and  understanding  of  their  Lord 
which  they  attained.  Perhaps  that  growth  was  not 
complete  until  the  special  gift  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
had  come  to  them  at  Pentecost.  Perhaps,  since  all  of 
Christendom  is  one  long  Pentecost,  it  is  not  complete 
yet,  nor  ever  will  be ;  but  it  began  and  came  to  a  full- 
ness which  we  can  distinctly  recognize  in  the  experiences 
of  that  terrible  night  of  which  the  sleep  in  the  garden 
seems  to  be  the  representative  event.  They  went  into 
the  cloud  of  that  night  with  one  knowledge  of  their  Mas- 
ter. They  came  out  of  its  darkness  on  the  other  side 
with  another  knowledge  of  their  Master,  which  was 
larger  and  deeper.  That  new  knowledge  of  Christ 
was,  in  one  word,  a  more  spiritual  knowledge.     It  was 


THURSDAY   BEFORE  EASTER.  251 

a  knowledge  of  the  soiil  of  Christ ;  and  the  sign  of  its 
possession  by  the  disciples  was  that  thenceforth  Christ 
was  not  localized  for  them  as  He  had  been.  They  were 
no  longer  dependent  upon  the  actual  seeing  of  Him  for 
the  assm-ance  of  His  presence,  and  they  were  able  to 
understand  His  relationship  to  all  men — even  those  who 
were  far  removed  from  the  special  circumstances  in 
which  they  had  known  Him.  Henceforward  they  were 
able  to  trust  Christ  even  when  they  could  not  see  Him, 
and  to  trust  Him  not  merely  for  their  own  little  group 
who  stood  the  closest  to  Him,  but  also  for  all  the  world 
of  men  in  every  land,  of  every  kind. 

How  vast  a  change  was  there !  The  promise  and 
potency  of  all  the  profound  spiritual  life  of  souls  com- 
muning with  an  unseen  Christ,  and  of  all  the  splendid 
faith  and  hope  and  work  of  man  for  the  most  hopeless 
of  his  fellow-men,  lay  in  that  change.  And  it  was  in 
the  bewilderment  out  of  which  that  change  was  to  be 
born  that  the  disciples  lay  oppressed  with  sleep  while 
their  Lord  wrestled  with  His  agony. 

And  notice,  also,  this  :  that  the  bewilderment  and  the 
enlightenment  which  followed  it  came  distinctly  from 
the  disciples'  contact  with  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  It 
was  under  the  shadow  of  His  cross  that  they  learned 
the  deepest  truth  concerning  Him,  and  found  possible  a 
faith  in  Him  as  the  Saviour  of  their  souls  in  a  perfect 
sense  which  must  have  made  all  their  previous  inter- 
course with  Him  seem  but  prehminary  to  this  gi'eat  ex- 
perience— all  this  through  the  amazement  of  sorrow  and 
distress  with  which  they  first  learned  that  He  whom 
they  had  loved  as  the  best  of  men  was  to  be  the  most 
tortured  and  persecuted.    I  do  not  see  how  any  one  can 


252  THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER. 

well  read  those  last  chapters  of  the  Gospels  and  not 
feel  something  of  what  is  to  me  more  and  more  their 
solemnity  and  charm — the  gradual  opening  up  in  the 
suffering  of  Jesus  of  a  revelation  of  His  nature  and  a 
promise  of  His  work,  which  at  first  overwhelms  His  dis- 
ciples with  perplexity,  and  then,  when  they  have  once 
entered  into  it,  becomes  the  substance  of  their  faith  and 
the  inspiration  of  their  work. 

And  what  took  place  then  was  only  the  anticipation 
of  what  has  taken  place  all  through  the  Christian  his- 
tory, of  what  is  taking  place  to-day.  It  is  in  contact 
with  the  cross  of  Christ,  with  the  fact  of  His  being  a 
sufferer,  with  the  spectacle  of  His  self-sacrificing  agony, 
that  there  has  always  come  to  the  souls  of  men,  first  be- 
wilderment which  seemed  to  paralyze  their  faith,  and 
then,  by  and  by,  a  light  which  made  their  faith  the  glory 
of  their  lives.  It  may  well  be  that  some  of  you  have 
passed  through  this  experience.  For  years,  perhaps,  you 
knew  Christ  as  a  sweet,  pure  nature,  as  a  noble  and 
lofty  Teacher.  You  listened  to  His  words ;  you  loved 
to  be  with  Him ;  you  even  prayed  to  Him  and  asked  for 
His  advice,  and  felt  sure  that  He  heard  you  and  gave 
you  what  you  asked  for ;  He  was  your  Teacher,  your 
Master,  and  your  Friend.  Can  you  remember  any  time 
when  you  began  to  realize  that  this  Teacher,  Master, 
and  Friend  was  the  supreme  sufferer  of  the  world,  and 
that  somehow  in  His  suffering,  in  His  willing  seK-sac- 
rifice  for  you,  lay  the  real  value  of  His  life  for  your  sal- 
vation ?  Can  you  remember  with  what  confusion  and 
dismay  that  idea  first  filled  you,  how  you  tried  to  throw 
it  off,  how  you  clung  to  the  old  pleasant  picture  of 
Christ  the  Teacher  sharing  with  you  His  wisdom,  and 


THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER.  253 

how  you  shrank  from  the  awful  mystery  of  God  utter- 
ing a  love  for  you  which  was  unutterable  in  any  other 
way  than  by  the  giving  of  His  Son  to  stand  in  the  midst 
of  aU  our  human  sin  and  bear  its  consequences  beat- 
ing on  His  innocent  life,  and  at  last  die  that  you  might 
live  ?  Can  you  remember  how  in  the  first  pressure  of 
that  deeper  truth  of  Christ,  in  its  first  importunate  ap- 
peal to  be  accepted  as  your  faith,  it  seemed  as  if  aU  faith 
in  Christ  died  out  of  you  ?  And  then  can  you  remem- 
ber how  at  last  that,  the  trust  in,  the  love  for,  the  suf- 
fering Saviour,  the  Christ  of  the  cross,  has  come  to  be 
the  faith  in  which  is  all  your  joy  and  hope  ?  Ah,  my 
deal"  fi'iends,  that  is  the  story  of  thousands  of  human 
hearts.  The  passage  from  the  love  for  Christ  as  a  wise 
Teacher  into  the  adoration  of  Christ  as  a  powerful  Sav- 
iour— thousands  of  times  that  has  been  made  through 
mists  and  darkness  where  all  faith  seemed  to  grow  bUnd 
and  perish.  But  by  and  by  the  soul  has  come  out  in 
the  hght  and  found,  as  those  disciples  found,  that  the 
Christ  on  whom  its  eyes  have  opened  was  a  more  per- 
fect Christ,  while  He  was  stiU  the  same  Christ  as  He 
whom  it  seemed  to  lose  in  its  eclipse  of  faith.  If  God, 
perchance,  is  leading  any  of  us  now  through  an  eclipse 
like  that,  may  He  watch  over  us  while  we  are  in  it,  and 
waken  us  in  His  own  good  time  to  that  more  perfect 
faith  in  Him  which  He  intends  for  us. 

The  whole  great  suggestion  which  has  come  to  us  out 
of  the  verse  is  the  education  which  God  wants  to  give 
us  even  by  our  failures.  Failures  enough  we  have — 
failures  of  faith,  failures  of  love,  failures  of  duty — fail- 
ures enough  of  every  kind.     If  in  our  failures  there 


254  THURSDAY  BEFORE  EASTER. 

were  no  material  of  growth  and  holiness,  how  large  a 
part  of  our  life  would  have  gone  to  waste,  even  if  that 
were  all  the  harm ! 

But  it  is  good  to  know  that  as  Christ  by  and  by 
waked  His  sleeping  apostles,  and  called  them  through 
their  very  faithlessness  and  disloyalty  into  a  deeper 
faith  and  a  truer  service,  so,  if  in  all  our  weakness  we 
can  still  be  docile  and  repentant  and  submissive,  He 
can  and  surely  will  bring  in  the  end  strength  out  of 
our  weakness  and  brighter  light  out  of  the  very  dark- 
ness where  our  souls  seemed  lost.  That  may  He  do  for 
all  of  us.    Amen. 


XVII. 

GOOD  FRIDAY. 

"And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  .  .  .  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me." — 
John  xii.  32. 

We  commemorate  to-day  the  "  lifting  up "  of  Him 
who  spoke  these  words.  All  the  religious  history  of 
mankind  since  that  event  has  been  bearing  witness  to 
some  truth  that  was  in  them.  For  not  even  the  most 
bewildered  doubter  about  the  life  of  Jesus  can  doubt 
this — that  "  all  men  "  who  have  been  brought  into  sight 
of  the  crucifixion  have  been  "  di'awn  unto  "  the  Cruci- 
fied with  some  kind  of  interest.  There  has  grown  out 
of  the  event  of  Good  Friday  a  new  life  of  thought  and 
action  for  the  world.  The  brain  and  heart  and  hand 
of  Christendom — of  all  that  portion  of  the  world,  that 
is,  which  has  preserved  any  real  activity  of  hand  or 
heart  or  brain — have  been  busy  ever  since  in  some  way 
developing  its  results.  No  man  looks,  I  think,  at  the 
modern  world  compared  with  the  condition  of  degen- 
eracy into  which  the  ancient  world  had  fallen  when  the 
Christian  religion  touched  it,  or  at  the  condition  of 
Christian  life  compared  with  that  of  heathen  life  in  aU 
times,  without  feeling  ready  to  say,  in  some  vague  and 
large  and  general  way,  that  the  death  of  Christ  has 
saved  the  world. 

255 


256  GOOD  FRIDAY. 

The  death  of  Christ !  not  merely  His  character  and 
teaching ;  for  historically,  from  the  very  first,  the  vio- 
lent death  of  Jesus  has  had  a  prominence  in  reUgious 
influence  which  will  not  allow  us,  even  as  faithful 
students  of  history,  to  leave  it  out  of  view  when  we 
speak  of  the  gi-eat  formative  power  of  modem  human 
life.  Always  and  everywhere  the  Christ  whom  Chris- 
tianity has  followed  has  been  a  Christ  who  died.  The 
picture  it  has  always  held  up  has  been  the  picture  of  a 
cross.  The  creed  it  has  always  held,  however  it  might 
vary  as  to  the  precise  effect  of  the  death,  has  always 
made  the  fact  of  death  vital  and  cardinal.  The  Jesus 
who  has  drawn  all  men  unto  Him  has  been  one  who 
based  His  power  upon  this  condition,  "if  I  be  lifted 
up." 

But  what  was  that  lifting  up?  What  was  it  that 
was  really  done  on  Calvary  out  of  which  such  an  influ- 
ence has  flowed,  so  wide,  so  deep?  We  may  say,  I 
know,  that  it  is  a  great  deal  better  not  to  ask.  Let  it 
all  rest,  we  may  say,  in  that  mystery  and  darkness 
which  has  proved  itself  so  powerful.  But  yet  our 
minds  misgive  us  that  it  is  not  right  to  leave  it  so — that 
we  are  bound  to  know  all  that  we  can  know  of  such  a 
great  event.  Let  us  look  into  it  this  Good  Friday 
morning.  While  we  stand  by  the  cross,  let  us  try  to 
know  what  it  means.  While  we  look  out  and  see  all 
men  drawn  toward  it — see,  with  the  eye  of  faith,  all 
men  at  last  gathered  about  its  foot — let  us  understand 
wherein  the  power  lies.  I  hope  we  may  gather  some 
clearness,  and  so  some  devoutness,  into  our  views. 

A  man  is  dying — that  is  all  that  the  external  circum- 
stances of  the  picture  show  us.     But  then  death,  we 


GOOD  FRIDAY.  257 

know,  is  infinitely  various.  The  deaths  of  men  crowd 
into  focus  their  natures  and  the  meanings  of  their  lives. 
Between  the  death  of  the  saint  and  the  death  of  the 
suicide,  between  the  death  of  the  martyr  and  the  death 
of  the  pirate,  lies  all  the  great  guK  that  lies  between 
their  several  characters.  We  must  go  behind  this 
death,  then,  to  find  the  nature  of  the  Being  that  is 
djdng,  and  the  object  of  His  death.  His  own  view  of 
it  we  find  siunmed  up  in  the  statement  He  has  made 
that  it  is  to  draw  the  attention  and  shape  the  destinies 
of  all  the  world.  "  If  I  be  lifted  up,  I  will  di'aw  all  men 
unto  Me."  We  siu'ely  cannot  overestimate  the  great 
importance  and  clearness  of  the  fact  that  Jesus  looked 
Himself  for  the  most  mighty  results  to  issue  from  His 
dying.  The  great  importance  which  the  Christian 
Church  has  given  to  that  event  has  only  echoed  the 
infinite  estimate  He  set  upon  it.  He  was  always  point- 
ing forward  to  it  before  it  came.  He  met  it  with  the 
most  awful  reverence  when  it  arrived.  And  with  the 
last  gasp  of  His  closing  agony  He  announced  the  com- 
pletion as  if  it  were  the  work  of  the  world  that  had 
been  finished. 

Now  what  relation  this  death  of  Jesus  may  have 
borne  to  the  nature  and  the  plans  of  God,  I  hold  it  the 
most  futile  and  irreverent  of  all  investigations  to  in- 
quii-e.  I  do  not  know,  and  I  do  not  beMeve  that  any 
theolog}^  is  so  much  wiser  than  my  ignorance  as  to 
know,  the  sacred  mysteries  that  passed  in  the  courts  of 
the  Divine  Existence  when  the  ndracle  of  Calvary  was 
perfect.  Now  the  death  of  every  man  affects  in  some 
way  the  sensitive  nature  of  the  great  Father,  who 
"is  love."    A  wicked  and  presumptuous  death  must 


258  GOOD  FRIDAY. 

anger  Him  as  no  other  insult  to  His  majesty  could.  A 
patient,  trustful  death  must  touch  His  deepest  tender- 
ness. *'  Right  dear  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death 
of  His  saints."  How  this  death,  then,  must  affect 
Him — ^this  unique  and  solitary  death,  standing  ajone 
amid  the  dying  ages,  unmatched  by  any  other ;  what 
feeling  it  might  waken,  what  changes  it  might  work, 
in  the  mind  of  God,  I  do  not  know ;  I  do  not  think  we 
can  know.  You  say  that  it  appeased  His  wrath.  I  am 
not  sure  there  may  not  be  some  meaning  of  those  words 
which  does  include  the  truth  which  they  try  to  express ; 
but  in  the  natural  sense  which  men  gather  from  them 
out  of  their  ordinary  human  uses,  I  do  not  believe  that 
they  are  true.  Nay,  I  believe  that  they  are  dreadfully 
untrue.  I  think  all  such  words  try  to  tell  what  no 
man  knows. 

If  this  be  so,  then  it  seems  clear  that  all  we  have  to 
do  with  in  the  death  of  Jesus  is  its  aspect  toward,  its 
influence  upon,  humanity.  We  are  concerned  with 
that  which  Jesus  spoke  of,  its  powerful  effect  to  work 
upon  the  lives  of  men.  And  tliis  could  evidently  come 
only  by  its  revealing  and  making  practically  clear  to 
men  some  new  truth  which  they  had  not  known  and 
believed  before.  This  follows  from  the  profoundness 
of  Jesus'  nature  and  intentions.  A  temporary  and  very 
violent  change  may  be  brought  about  in  men  by  the 
striking  exhibition  of  some  old  familiar  truth,  the  sud- 
den waking  up  to  action  of  some  weU-knowu  but  slug- 
gish and  neglected  law  of  life.  But  a  great,  permanent, 
progressive  influence,  a  steady,  constant  setting  of  the 
power  of  human  life,  a  new  way  toward  a  new  point — 
that  is  attained  only  by  bringing,  and  settling  firmly 


GOOD  FRroAY.  259 

in,  a  new  great  truth,  only  by  establisHng  a  new  law 
under  which  a  new  life  must  be  organized.  Now  Jesus 
Christ,  whom  without  irreverence  we  call  the  greatest 
of  reformers,  the  great  Renewer,  whom  all  true  reform- 
ers do  but  faintly  echo — Jesus  Christ  must  of  necessity 
have  based  His  prophecy  of  pennanent  power  in  the 
world  upon  the  introduction  by  His  death  of  some  such 
new  truth,  some  such  new  law.  He  did  not  propose  to 
regenerate  the  world  by  sentiment — to  set  up  a  spec- 
tacle of  suffering  and  so  stimulate  the  human  heart  to 
action  by  mere  pity.  He  was  no  spiritual  demagogue 
attempting  vast  results  by  the  excitement  of  mere 
transitory  feeling.  He  did  not  merely  set  forth  old 
truths  in  a  striking  and  picturesque  way.  That  was 
what  Socrates  did,  and  he  did  well.  But  Jesus'  work 
was  deeper,  and  so  more  central  and  effective.  He  set 
forth  a  new  truth,  which  men  might  have  guessed  at 
and  longed  for,  but  which  they  never  could  have 
known,  and  so  which  never  could  have  genuinely  ruled 
their  lives,  before. 

What  was  that  new  truth,  then  ?  In  one  word,  it 
was  the  truth  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  It  may  seem 
as  if  that  truth  was  not  so  very  new.  But  as  a  revealed 
truth  it  was  new  entirely.  The  one  truth  that  had  been 
clearly  revealed  about  God  before  was  that  He  made 
laws.  God  the  Lawmaker  was  the  utterance  of  evers' 
voice  that  had  thus  far  distinctly  spoken  to  the  finite 
from  the  Infinite.  That  utterance,  gracious  and  inspir- 
ing so  long  as  the  laws  that  it  announced  were  kept, 
had  become  fatal  and  dispiriting  as  soon  as  law  was 
violated.  For  the  quick  human  conscience,  burdened 
with  the  certainty  of  sin,  had  reached  the  necessary 


260  GOOD  FRIDAY. 

certainty  that  sin  must  have  its  penalty.  I  believe  it 
needs  no  supernatural  declaration  of  the  fact,  I  believe 
the  highest  human  thought  of  God  itself  discerns,  that 
when  God  makes  a  law  it  is  not,  like  the  laws  of  men, 
an  accidental  thing,  the  mere  creation  of  a  choice,  and 
so  capable  of  being  taken  back  and  the  penalties  that 
belonged  to  its  violation  abrogated.  But  a  di\'ine  law 
we  feel  must  have  something  necessary  and  essential 
in  it.  It  is  the  result  and  expression  of  a  nature  that 
is  divine.  The  absolute  character  of  the  Lawgiver  in- 
coi-porates  itself  in  an  absolute  character  of  the  law. 
So  that  when  God  says,  "  You  must  not  lie,"  and  you 
or  I  do  lie,  it  is  not  possible  for  Deity  to  sweep  His  law 
aside  and  say,  "  No  matter."  He  enacted  truth  because 
He  was  truth  and  could  not  help  it.  And  when  His 
enactment  is  despised,  the  nature  that  is  in  Him  com- 
pels Him  to  make  the  despiser  suifer  for  his  wrong- 
doing. There  is  a  moral  limit  even  to  Omnipotence, 
and  the  conscience  of  man  decrees  that  He  who  can  do 
all  besides  cannot  do  wrong,  and  so  cannot  treat  wrong- 
doing in  others  just  as  if  it  were  right.  There  is  no 
strain  in  such  a  thought.  It  is  merely  an  application 
in  the  moral  world  of  that  divine  necessity  whicli  we 
are  always  owning  and  bowing  to  in  the  world  of 
nature.  You  touch  the  fire  and  you  must  be  burned. 
You  cut  an  artery  and  you  must  bleed  to  death.  The 
laws  that  issue  from  the  very  nature  of  the  great  first 
Source  of  law  cannot  be  trifled  with  in  their  require- 
ments without  a  change  in  that  natm*e  itself  which 
would  make  it  less  divine  and  perfect. 

This  I  hold  to  be  the  highest  thought  that  man 
reaches  of  God  with  any  certainty  outside  of  the  New 


GOOD   FRroAY.  261 

Testament.  It  describes,  I  think,  the  true  state  of  the 
thoughtful,  conscientious  nature  outside  of  Christian 
influence.  We  hear  that  such  a  nature,  finding  itself 
in  sin,  hates  God.  I  do  not  think  that  that  is  so.  The 
man  does  not  hate  God.  He  does  not  blame  God.  He 
simply  holds  God  bound  by  His  perfect  natui-e  to  exe- 
cute unpityingly  His  perfect  laws.  He  sees  that  there 
is  no  escape.  He  recognizes  that  to  forgive  man  would 
be  to  weaken  and  vitiate  Himself.  He  says,  "  Yes,  God 
is  right.  The  blow  must  come.  Not  even  Omnipotence 
can  find  an  escape."  His  religion  turns  to  submission, 
and  gathering  up  his  patience,  he  just  bows  his  head 
and  waits  his  punishment. 

This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  true  description  of  the 
thoughtful  man  who  knows  his  sin  and  thinks  of  God 
out  of  Christ.  All  that  he  knows  of  in  God  compels 
punishment  and  precludes  forgiveness.  It  is  what  a 
man  must  be  driven  to  who  knows  no  quality  in  God 
except  the  quality  of  law.  But  now  suppose  that  in 
this  same  divine  nature  there  were  another  feature,  just 
as  essentially  and  originally  a  part  of  it  as  the  other — 
a  faculty  or  quality  which  made  the  forgiveness  of 
transgression  a  possible  thing.  Man  surely  cannot 
know  what  that  quality  is,  because  he  can  really  know 
nothing  of  the  nature  of  the  laws  which  issue  from  the 
First  Cause  of  all  law  with  which  it  has  to  deal.  The 
quality  will  not  be  identical  with  that  by  which  man 
pardons  the  wrongs  that  are  done  against  him,  for  man 
is  no  source  of  law,  and  so  the  injuries  that  he  forgives 
are  really  not  done  against  him,  but  against  God,  who 
stands  behind  him.  Forgiveness  of  man  by  man  I  take 
to  be  only  the  handing  up  of  crimes  past  any  spite  or 


262  GOOD  FRroAY. 

rancor  of  our  own  to  the  one  only  final  judgment-seat. 
No !  forgiveness  in  God  must  be  an  unknown  quality. 
It  must  not  be  a  sudden  thought,  a  mere  expedient  to 
meet  an  unforeseen  emergency.  It  must  not  be  a  mere 
extemporized  afterthought.  It  is  a  part  of  the  eternal 
Deity.  It  has  been  with  God,  in  God,  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  is  from  everlasting,  as  He  is.  It  has  lain 
waiting  on  the  power  of  law  till  law  transgressed  should 
call  it  into  action.  On  what  previous  races,  in  what 
previous  worlds,  it  has  been  exercised  we  cannot  know. 
We  only  know  that  as  soon  as  its  necessity  arose  with 
reference  to  our  world,  as  soon  as  the  necessity  of 
punishment  came  forth  at  the  first  sin,  this  gracious 
power  of  forgiveness  showed  itself,  and  Mercy  met 
Justice  in  the  conflict,  where  it  was  sure  to  conquer. 

Now  these  two  faculties  or  powers  of  Deity  are  mani- 
fested to  the  world  under  two  personal  characters. 
The  Deity  of  law  demanding  punishment  is  God  the 
Father,  the  Deity  of  forgiveness  is  Jesus  Christ.  The 
perfect  harmony  of  the  two  powers,  their  coexistence 
in  the  one  complete  Divinity,  must  be  made  apparent ; 
not  explained,  not  reconciled,  only  made  clearly  known. 
Before  a  world  of  sinners,  who  know  nothing  of  their 
God  save  that  He  has  made  laws  whose  dignity  He  has 
no  power  to  infringe,  there  must  come  forth  this  other 
fact :  that  there  is  also  a  mysterious  power  wliich  can 
meet  those  laws,  absolve  the  penalty,  and  with  the  one 
condition  of  repentance  let  the  condemned  go  free. 
As  the  law  was  in  a  person,  so  this  forgiveness  must  be 
in  a  person  too.  As  the  lawgiving  Person  was  eternal 
and  supreme,  so  the  forgiving  Person  must  be  eternal 
and  supreme  as  well.     It  must  not  be  the  conflict  of 


GOOD  FRIDAY.  263 

two  contending  Deities,  for  the  two  are  harmonious 
parts  of  one  and  the  same  nature;  therefore  the  con- 
demning Father  and  the  atoning  Son  must  be  not  two 
Gods,  but  one  Grod,  at  unity  in  every  will  and  action. 
And  yet  the  fact  of  self-restraint,  of  self-control,  of  the 
yielding  of  one  requirement  to  another,  of  a  conflict 
resulting  in  the  victory  of  one  over  the  other,  cannot 
be  set  before  the  eyes  and  minds  of  men  save  by  the 
outward  picture  of  a  trial  and  a  triumph,  of  suffering 
and  effort,  of  harmony  and  reconciliation  coming  out 
of  pain. 

Now  here  is  our  idea  of  Christ.  He  was  forever  in 
the  Deity,  the  forgiving  God,  the  element  of  pardon. 
Uncreated,  eternal  as  the  Deity  itself,  the  power  of 
pardon  has  rested  there  in  Him  forever.  Before  Adam 
was  made,  before  the  oldest  star  or  earhest  sun,  the 
certain  fact  was  there  that  if  ever  a  moral  race  of  men 
was  made,  and  those  men  sinned,  the  necessity  of  pun- 
ishment that  would  result  must  be  met  by  a  power  of 
forgiveness  which  should  cope  with  it  and  restrain  it 
and  offer  a  new  life  to  the  recreant  and  sinful  nature. 
The  ages  rolled  away.  The  creation  of  man  arrived. 
The  sin  of  man  succeeded,  and  then,  quick  as  aU  divine 
causes  bring  divine  results,  this  element  of  forgiveness, 
this  Christ,  stood  forward  in  the  Deity  and  claimed 
His  long-expected  work.  Adam  and  millions  of  his 
children,  as  they  repented  of  their  sins,  attained  for- 
giveness. The  pardoning  Saviour  became  the  great 
administrator  of  the  world. 

What,  then,  is  this  which  we  behold  to-day?  "What 
but  the  great  announcement,  the  assurance,  of  this 
everlasting  truth?    It  could  not  have  its  full  effect 


264  GOOD  PRroAY. 

until  men  knew  of  it.  It  could  not  tempt  the  sinful 
and  degraded  souls  into  that  repentance  which  was  the 
absolute  condition  of  its  action,  till  first  it  had  been 
shown  to  them.  And  so  the  mystery  of  Incarnation 
came.  This  Chi'ist,  who  had  been  forgiveness  an  eter- 
nity before  man  was  made,  who  had  bestowed  forgive- 
ness ever  since  man  had  sinned,  came  now  to  preach 
forgiveness,  and  by  His  wilHng  suffering  to  show  how 
the  divine  nature  may  sacrifice  itself  to  reach  the  great 
end  it  desires  of  the  replacement  of  a  race  into  its  lost 
hoUness  and  hope. 

''If  I  be  lifted  up,  I  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me." 
If  this  be  so,  is  it  not  evident,  then,  where  Jesus  saw 
the  power  in  His  death  that  was  to  rule  the  world  ?  If 
it  were  really,  that  Good  Friday  cross,  the  holding  up 
of  a  new  faculty  in  God  that  men  had  guessed  of  and 
hoped  for  and  dreamed  about  and  even  trusted  in,  but 
never  known  before,  then  was  it  a  wild  or  reasonless 
prophecy  that  wherever  that  cross  should  be  seen  this 
new  great  truth,  forgiveness — forgiveness  by  the  mani- 
fest reconciliation  of  a  yet  unknown  power  in  God's 
nature ;  forgiveness  wrought  by  sacrifice,  by  pain,  but 
wrought  at  any  cost  out  of  the  great  love  God  liad  for 
man — this  new  great  truth,  forgiveness,  should  strike 
the  closed  hearts  of  men  everywhere  and  make  them 
open,  and  call  them  up  in  wondering  gi-atitude  to 
gather  round  and  worship  with  responsive  love  this 
love,  so  marvelous,  manifested  to  them  ? 

How  shall  we  hold  otherwise  than  this  ?  We  degrade 
the  whole  nature  of  the  suffering  Divinity  if  we  picture 
Jesus  just  appealing  to  men's  pity  and  lowering  His 
mere}'  to   be  an   apphcant  before  their  sentimental 


GOOD  FRIDAY.  265 

sympathy  with  pain.  And  we  dishonor  the  divine 
completeness  if  we  talk  of  the  Atonement  as  if  it  were 
the  late  device  to  remedy  an  unprovided  break  in  the 
administration  of  the  universe.  No !  Christ  was  the 
truth;  the  new  truth,  yet  the  everlasting  truth — new 
in  its  certain  exhibition  to  mankind,  everlasting  in  its 
existence  in  the  nature  of  God.  This  was  the  "  Lamb 
slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world."  Then — then 
alone — this  spectacle  assumes  its  truest  majesty.  From 
aU  eternity,  upon  whose  very  limit  my  sense  aches  in 
the  attempt  to  measure  it,  this  Jesus  has  been  waiting 
to  show  this  truth  to  me.  He  has  come  at  last  and 
shown  it.  He  has  written  it  out  in  blood.  He  has 
hung  it  up  where  I  must  see  it.  He  has  laboriously 
translated  it  into  a  human  life,  that  I  may  not  mistake 
it.  And  then,  when  He  can  do  no  more,  when  the 
truth  that  has  been  true  forever  has  been  thus  fearfully 
announced,  the  work  is  over,  and  crying,  "It  is  fin- 
ished," the  Saviour  closes  His  eyes  and  drops  His  head 
and  dies. 

Oh,  what  a  finishing  that  was !  It  is  as  if  eternity 
were  crowded  into  the  heart  of  Him  who  spoke.  All 
He  had  been  forever  had  consummated  itself  at  last. 
The  long  yearning  to  let  men  know  what  a  love  waited 
for  them  in  the  heart  of  God  was  satisfied.  The  light 
was  kindled  on  the  mountain-top,  and  ah-eady  the  quick 
ear  of  Divinity  heard  the  stiiTing  in  thousands  of  val- 
leys, where  men,  hopeless  before,  were  gathering  up 
their  burdens  and  with  the  inspu-ation  of  an  unfamiliar 
hope  were  starting  to  struggle  up  with  them,  deter- 
mined not  to  rest  until  they  cast  them  down  into  the 
shadow  of  that  unseen  cross.    What  cry  like  this  has 


266  GOOD  FRIDAY. 

the  world  ever  heard  ?  Not  even  that  first  utterance  of 
calm  creative  power,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  had  greater 
meaning  or  subUmity  than  this  last  agony  of  love  that 
burst  from  the  lips  of  the  satisfied  Redeemer :  "  I  have 
been  lifted  up.  I  shall  draw  aU  men  unto  Me.  Now 
it  is  finished." 

The  truth  we  are  to  learn  to-day,  then,  is  the  truth 
that  sin  may  be  forgiven.  It  is  brought  with  enforce- 
ment to  every  part  of  our  nature.  It  is  presented  to 
the  conscience  side  by  side  with  the  enormity  of  sin,  as 
growing  out  of  the  same  nature  of  the  same  God,  who 
is  both  Condemner  and  Forgiver.  It  is  urged  upon  the 
intellect  as  the  clear  revelation  of  Him  alone  who  has 
any  right  to  announce  the  sinner's  destmy.  It  is  laid 
close  upon  the  heart  with  all  the  pathetic  appeal  of 
suffering,  and  emphasized  with  the  terrible  power  of 
divine  pain.  It  is  the  trutli  our  souls  need.  Every- 
thing you  have  ever  done  that  was  wrong — the  great 
and  small  transgressions  of  your  hfe,  your  sins  against 
yourself,  your  sins  against  your  brother,  your  sins 
against  yoiu'  God — they  may  aU  be  forgiven  you. 
Your  impieties  and  doubts,  your  omissions  and  com- 
missions, your  tamperings  with  truth,  youi*  wicked 
thoughts  and  words  and  deeds — you  need  not  carry 
one  of  them  one  step  farther.  They  may  all  be  forgiven 
and  swept  away,  and  buried  so  deep — so  deep — that 
neither  your  own  self-reproach,  nor  the  malice  of  your 
most  powerful  enemy,  nor  the  judgment  of  the  offended 
law,  shaU  find  them  out.  Better  than  this,  the  wicked- 
ness of  which  they  sprang,  the  sinfulness  of  which  these 
sins  were  but  the  utterance,  the  evil  heart,  that  too  may 


GOOD  FRIDAY.  267 

be  taken  utterly  away  and  your  soul  stand  pure  and 
reconciled — not  like  a  soul  that  never  sinned,  but  with 
the  deeper  love  of  a  soul  sin-stained  and  washed — be- 
fore the  face  of  your  forgiving  God.  Of  all  this  there 
is  no  condition  but  the  simplest — repentance  and  faith  ! 
You  must  be  soiTy  for  your  sins,  and  you  must  believe 
this  truth  of  their  removal.  You  must  stand  up  and 
look  back  into  eternity  and  see  how,  ages  before  you 
sinned,  there  was  in  the  perfect  Grodhead  this  eternal 
Christ,  already  rich  in  provision  for  the  coming  woe. 
The  sight  will  not  make  you  presumptuous,  as  if  the 
guilt  whose  cui-e  was  ready  before  it  was  itself  in  being 
were  a  light  and  trifling  thing.  It  will  fill  you  with  a 
large  and  glowing  love,  standing  in  wonder  before  a 
mercy  so  far-reaching,  so  eternal,  and  so  deep.  All 
must  be  lighted  by  the  manifest  Redeemer  lifted  up 
upon  His  cross.  You  must  be  drawn  to  Him,  and  leav- 
ing your  own  life  behind,  you  utterly  pass  into  His  life 
and  be  a  new  creature  in  Him  henceforth  forever ! 

Do  I  state  as  a  necessity  what  has  been  long  the 
craving  desire  of  youi*  anxious  soul?  Do  I  say  you 
must  repent  and  trust,  when  this  trust  and  repentance 
is  the  very  thing  that  you  have  longed  to  be  allowed  to 
do  ?  Do  I  say  you  must  be  drawn,  when  your  whole 
nature  has  been  hungry  with  the  desire  to  be  allowed 
to  rise  and  run  to  such  a  gracious  God  as  this  ?  Then 
let  me  put  the  duty  back  and  spread  the  new,  great, 
certain  privilege  of  faith  before  your  eyes.  Lo !  it  is 
finished.  Nothing  remains  to  hide  or  hinder  your  per- 
fect open  way.  Whoever  you  are  that  listen  to  me 
now,  there  is  not  one  of  you  who,  if  he  will  hate  his  sin 
and  put  it  away  from  him,  may  not  come  to  God  with 


268  GOOD  FRIDAY. 

a  perfect  assm-ance  that  God  will  forgive  him,  and  intro- 
duce him  through  the  gate  of  forgiveness  into  a  better 
and  diviner  life,  and  lead  him  on  from  holiness  to  holi- 
ness, and  bring  him  at  last  to  untold  glory.  That  is 
the  message  of  the  cross,  and  God  grant  that  some  of 
you  may  hear  it  and  be  comforted  and  saved. 


; 


xvm. 

EASTER  DAY. 

"  That  I  may  know  Him,  and  the  power  of  His  resurrection." — 
Phil.  in.  10. 

This  was  the  Easter  prayer  of  Paul,  and  his  Easter 
prayer  was  the  prayer  of  all  his  life,  for  he  peculiarly 
lived  in  Easter  all  the  time.  The  only  one  of  the  dis- 
ciples who  had  not  known  Jesus  in  His  earthly  life,  to 
him  the  spiritual  life  of  the  risen  and  ascended  Jesus 
was  most  especially  near  and  dear.  "  If  Christ  be  not 
raised,"  he  cried,  "  your  faith  is  vain ;  ye  are  yet  in  your 
sins." 

The  Easter  prayer  of  Paul  was  that  he  might  know 
the  power  of  this  resurrection  of  Chi-ist.  He  was  a 
man  who  was  not  satisfied  to  know  a  truth  unless  he 
also  knew  its  power ;  unless,  that  is,  he  felt  its  influence 
upon  himself.  For  there  are  different  sorts  of  know- 
ledge. Every  fact  has  its  outer  form  and  its  inner 
power,  its  visible  shape  and  its  in^dsible  meaning. 
Something  happens  and  I  hear  of  it.  That  is  the 
slightest  sort  of  knowledge.  The  mind  simply  receives 
and  registers  the  incident.  But  let  me  find  that  that 
something  has  a  relation  to  me — that  it  must  influence 
my  action  and  change  my  life ;  let  me  feel  this  deeply, 
and  then  I  know  the  power  of  the  fact.     It  is  not  the 

269 


270  EASTER  DAY. 

mind  alone,  it  is  the  whole  man,  who  knows  it.  It  is 
one  thing  to  stand  on  the  shore  and  see  the  gi-eat  waves 
and  say,  "  There  is  a  storm ;"  and  it  is  a  very  different 
thing  to  be  out  in  the  midst  of  those  waves,  tossed 
.every  way  by  them,  fighting  for  yoiu*  Hfe.  On  the 
shore  you  know  of  them ;  in  their  midst  you  know  them, 
you  know  their  power.  The  fli-st  is  information,  the 
second  is  experience.  Some  men  are  content  with 
knowing  facts ;  other  people  will  be  content  only  with 
knowing  powers.  An  unfelt  fact  is  nothing  at  all  to 
these  last.  There  is  no  truth  to  them  that  does  not 
take  their  nature  and  their  lives  into  its  hands  and 
change  them.  Of  this  last  class  was  Paid,  who  prayed 
that  he  might  "know  the  power  of  Christ's  resur- 
rection." 

And  Paul's  prayer  must  be  our  prayer  to-day.  To 
make  our  Easter  perfect  we  must  come  begging  and 
trying  to  know  in  our  own  lives  all  that  it  means ;  to 
put  ourselves  into  the  power  of  Christ's  resurrection 
and  be  possessed  and  formed  by  it.  What  shall  we 
say,  then,  is  this  power !  How  does  this  event,  past  so 
long  ago,  lay  hold  of  and  govern  and  change  the  lives 
of  men  living  now?  What  new  life  does  it  lift  them 
to ;  what  new  spirit  does  it  fill  them  with  ?  Let  us  see 
if  we  can  approach  at  all  the  answer  to  these  questions. 

We  celebrate  on  Easter  Day  the  rising  of  our  Saviour 
from  the  tomb.  For  that  the  whole  aspect  of  our 
thought  and  worship  changes.  Our  sober  churches 
burst  out  into  flowers,  our  hushed  voices  break  out  into 
songs  of  praise,  our  whole  religiousness  puts  on  another 
robe — exultation  instead  of  sorrow,  "the  garment  of 
praise  for  the  spirit  of  heaviness."    And  we  go  about 


EASTER  DAY.  271 

with  one  another,  heart  saying  to  heart  everywhere, 
*'  Christ  is  risen."  And  what  makes  that  such  a  glad 
greeting  is  the  assurance  that  is  hidden  in  under  it  and 
is  heard  up  through  it :  "  We  too  shall  rise."  It  is  the 
assurance  of  our  immortaUty  bound  up  with  Christ's, 
the  certainty  that  because  He  rose  we  shall  rise  also, 
that  makes  the  resurrection  such  a  message  of  gladness 
to  us  all. 

But  is  this  all  ?  Is  this  simple  assurance  of  continued 
existence,  that  we  are  to  rise  from  the  dead  and  go  on 
in  some  future  state  of  existence — is  this  what  Paul 
means  by  "  the  power  of  the  resurrection  "  ?  It  seems 
certainly  evident  enough  that  Paul  meant  more  than 
this — that  it  was  some  great  powerful  change  to  be 
worked  in  and  on  him  himself.  On  him — not  merely 
on  things  about  him.  It  was  not  simply  that  by 
Christ's  death  and  resurrection  the  tyranny  of  the  old 
law  of  decay  had  been  broken,  so  that  instead  of  living 
seventy  years  his  life  was  to  stretch  out  into  eternit}' 
and  never  to  end.  It  was  evidently  that  the  quality  of 
the  life  itself  was  to  be  changed,  that  he  was  to  be 
something  new  and  different,  and  not  that  he  was  just 
to  be  the  same  old  thing  a  httle  or  a  good  deal  longer, 
when  he  should  know  the  power  of  the  resurrection. 
This  was  what  he  prayed  for. 

Indeed,  there  are  not  many  of  us  that  would  or  ought 
to  count  the  revelation  of  immortality  so  very  great  a 
boon  if  aU  that  it  meant  were  simply  the  infinite  con- 
tinuance of  life.  Merely  that  an  eternity  should  be 
opened  up,  out  into  which  we  should  see  stretching  in- 
finitely these  poor,  purposeless  lives  we  live ;  that  we 
should  be  told  that  we  were  to  keep  on  struggling  and 


272  EASTER  DAY. 

grudging  and  envying  and  crawling,  misunderstanding 
one  another,  and  blundering  about  in  our  half -know- 
ledge ;  just  to  be  told  that  we  need  not  fear  an  end  of 
this — that  a  revelation  had  come  to  tell  us  that  it  might 
last  forever.  Would  this  be  such  a  joyous  message? 
Would  it  not  rather  be  terrible  ?  This  life  of  ours  does 
well  enough,  we  think,  for  a  little  time ;  but  magnify 
it  into  an  eternity  and  it  is  simply  horrible.  A  "  power 
of  the  resurrection  "  which  could  do  only  this  for  us, 
and  nothing  more,  it  would  be  far  better  that  we  should 
not  "  know,"  for  it  would  condemn  us  to  helpless  dis- 
gust with  our  own  life,  which  we  must  yet  go  on  living 
for  ever  and  ever. 

This  was  not  what  Paul  prayed  for,  and  this  is 
not  what  we  want,  then — not  mere  immortality.  This 
opening  of  new  prospects  is  no  blessing  unless  there  be 
promised  some  new  capacity  to  fill  them.  The  new 
world  is  no  satisfying  message  unless  there  comes  also 
some  tidings  of  a  new  man  who  is  to  occupy  it.  The 
promise  of  resurrection  finds  its  consummate  satisfac- 
tion only  in  close  union  with  the  other  promise  of  re- 
generation. The  two  must  go  together — the  new  world 
and  the  new  man. 

This,  beyond  all  doubt,  is  the  idea  of  Paul.  Mere 
eternity  of  time,  an  endless  renewal  of  the  mere  fact  of 
life  forever,  would  have  been  nothing  to  him — less  to 
him  than  to  almost  any  other  man  that  ever  lived — ^if 
there  were  connected  with  it  no  spiritual  renewal,  no 
infinity  of  spiritual  life.  He  puts  it  all  in  one  verse  to 
the  Romans :  ''  That  like  as  Christ  was  raised  up  from 
the  dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  even  so  we  also 
should  walk  in  newness  of  life."     There  is  the  whole 


EASTER  DAY.  273 

power  of  the  "  resurrection  " — a  new  man  for  the  new 
world.  In  every  respect  in  which  Easter  opens  a  new 
prospect  before  man  it  must  open  also  a  new  character 
in  man.  Until  it  has  done  that,  man  has  not  reaUy 
"  known  its  power." 

In  order  to  understand  this  it  is  necessary  for  us  to 
see  that  Christ's  resurrection  has  effect  upon  us  not 
simply  as  a  prophecy.  It  does  not  simply  promise  us 
something  that  we  are  to  hope  to  reach  when  we  have 
crossed  the  line  of  death  and  entered  on  the  future 
world.  It  was  not  simply  the  announcement,  "After 
you  are  dead  another  hf e  will  begin ;  therefore  live  now 
in  hope."  On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  new  value  and 
color  given  to  this  life ;  it  was  a  change  in  the  purposes 
and  ways  of  living  now  that  it  introduced. 

Indeed,  the  work  of  Christ  in  rising  from  the  dead 
was  not,  properly  speaking,  a  revelation  of  the  human 
immortality.  Men  had  known  that  before.  The  Phari- 
sees beheved  in  it  completely.  Christ  made  it  surer, 
certainly — He  made  it  perfectly  sure;  but  His  great 
work  was  done  in  bringing  that  future  life,  before  so 
vague,  so  dim,  so  far  away,  into  close  oneness  with  this 
present  life.  The  two  had  been  two  and  He  made  them 
one — one  in  their  government,  one  in  their  purposes, 
one  in  their  one  great,  pervading,  embracing  responsi- 
bility. He  "  brought  hfe  and  immortality  to  light,"  as 
Paul  says.  He  put  them  where  they  could  be  motives ; 
and  just  as,  when  you  hold  before  your  child  the  prizes 
of  his  coming  manhood  for  temptations,  you  change 
his  view  not  merely  of  the  life  he  is  to  live  when  he  is 
thirty,  but  also  of  the  life  that  he  is  living  now  at 
twelve,  so  Jesus,  when  He  made  eternity  clear  and 


274  EASTER  DAY. 

familiar  to  us  by  letting  us  see  Him  close  as  He  passed 
into  it,  by  opening  its  door  wide  and  letting  its  golden 
glory  stream  back  on  the  world  on  Easter  Day,  altered, 
transfigured,  not  merely  that  world  which  before  had 
been  to  the  most  hopeful  of  mankind  nothing  but 
"Hades,"  "the  unseen,"  but  also  this  whole  present 
world,  which  is  the  preparation  for  it,  and  must  share 
in  the  changes  of  its  character. 

I  often  think  that  there  is  some  faint  echo  of  the 
power  of  Jesus'  resurrection  when  for  the  first  time  the 
death  of  a  dear  friend  comes  into  a  man's  life  and 
makes  it  thenceforth  different,  never  again  what  it  has 
been  before.  I  do  not  mean  the  mere  soberness  and 
solemnity  which  the  whole  thought  of  living  from  that 
hour  assumes ;  I  do  not  allude  to  the  mere  sadness  of 
bereavement,  but  I  speak  of  that  new  sense  of  reality 
in  the  world  beyond  the  grave  which  comes  to  all  of  us 
when  for  the  first  time  we  can  think  of  one  who  has 
been  intimate  in  our  interests  as  having  gone  there  and 
sat  down  in  the  intimacy  of  its  interests,  which  have 
heretofore  been  so  foreign  to  us  and  so  far  away. 
Heaven  has  at  once  an  association  with  us.  We  have 
a  relation  there.  One  name  is  known  in  its  mysterious 
streets,  and  so  its  streets  become  less  mysterious  and 
remote  to  us.  It  is  somewhat  as  when  a  mother  in 
some  little  country  village  sends  her  boy  to  the  great 
city,  and  at  once  feels  familiar  with  the  great  city  be- 
cause somewhere,  lost  in  among  its  hurrying  thousands, 
her  boy  is  there.  His  familiar  life,  transported  to  it, 
seems  to  make  it  familiar.  She  feels  as  if  she  knew  all 
about  it.  She  talks  of  it  with  a  kind  of  affection,  as  if 
it  were  almost  her  home,  because  it  is  the  home  of  one 


EASTER   DAY.  275 

she  loves.  She  catches  every  mention  of  it  as  if  it  were 
a  message  meant  for  her.  To  go  there  is  the  constant 
dream  of  her  life,  and  she  feels  as  if  when  she  came 
there  she  would  know  at  once  the  streets  in  wliich  her 
heart  has  had  its  home  so  long.  So  when  a  dear  friend 
dies  and  goes  to  heaven,  heaven  at  once  catches  and 
naturalizes  into  itself  all  our  love  for  him.  We  read 
about  it  as  if  we  knew  it,  and  when  we  think  of  going 
there  ourselves  we  think  of  it  as  going  home,  because 
our  heart  has  had  its  home  there  so  long. 

Is  it  not  evident,  then,  from  this  what  it  was  that 
Jesus  did  for  all  the  world,  and  what  it  was  His  desire 
to  do  for  all  of  us,  by  His  resurrection  ?  First,  by  His 
life  and  death  He  had  made  the  closest  appeal  that  ever 
has  been  made  to  the  human  heart.  He  had  taught 
man  to  love  Him.  He  had  called  out  the  deepest  and 
tenderest  affection.  With  all  this  He  passed  down  into 
the  grave.  We  saw  Him  go  in  at  the  black  door.  We 
watched  and  waited  after  He  had  disappeared,  till  at 
last  from  a  region  that  before  had  been  to  us  like  a  land 
of  ghosts,  the  region  beyond  the  grave,  the  land  of 
those  who  hve  again,  we  saw  Him  come  out,  still 
clothed  with  our  affection,  still  bearing  our  hearts  with 
Him.  At  once  that  strange  land  lost  its  ghostliness. 
He  was  there,  not  changed,  but  still  such  a  one  as  we 
could  love.  His  life  there  made  it  all  real  to  us.  We  un- 
derstood Him  when  He  said,  "  I  ascend  unto  My  Father, 
and  your  Father ;  and  to  My  God,  and  your  God."  They 
were  ours  as  well  as  His.  We  knew  them  as  ours  by 
knowing  them  as  His.  Already,  just  as  the  mother  in 
her  village  lives  yet  in  the  great  city,  and  her  life  is 
different  because  her  child  is  there ;  as  the  friend  lives 


276  EASTER  DAY. 

in  heaven  wMle  lie  is  still  on  the  earth,  and  his  life  is 
altered  and  is  happier  and  higher  because  his  friend  has 
gone  to  bliss,  so  the  true  Christian  lives  in  the  spiritual 
world  in  which  Christ  is,  even  while  he  lives  still  in  the 
body.  His  life  is  different  this  side  the  veil  because 
his  heart  has  passed  through  with  his  risen  Saviour  to 
that  now  familiar  realm  of  life  that  lies  beyond.  In 
Paul's  wonderful  words,  he  is  *'  risen  with  Christ."  In 
the  words  of  our  collect  for  Ascension  Day,  which  have 
the  whole  truth  in  them,  "  Like  as  he  does  believe  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  have  ascended  into  the  heavens, 
so  he  also  in  heart  and  mind  thither  ascends  and  with 
Him  continually  dwells." 

This  is  the  power  of  the  resurrection.  You  see  it  is 
no  far-off  promise.  It  is  a  present  gift.  It  is  not  the 
offer  of  a  meager  hope.  It  is  the  joy  of  Christian  pos- 
session. It  is  the  power  of  regeneration.  "Except  a 
man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven."  Just  as  soon  as  a  man  is  born  again  by  the 
power  of  God's  Spu'it,  he  has  already  entered  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  which  Christ  opened  when  He  arose 
from  the  dead. 

And  more  than  this.  As  the  first  power  of  the  resur- 
rection is  the  power  of  regeneration,  as  a  man  begins 
to  be  under  the  influence  of  the  eternal  life  that  is  held 
out  before  him  only  when  he  begins  to  have  eternal  life 
abiding  in  him,  so  it  is  not  only  in  the  beginning,  but 
aU  through  the  new  life.  The  life  of  a  true  Clu-istian 
seems  to  me  to  be  continually  full  of  Easters;  to  be 
one  perpetual  renewal  of  things  from  their  lower  to 
their  higher,  from  their  temporal  into  their  spiritual 
shape  and  power.    This  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  self- 


EASTER   DAY.  277 

sacrifice  and  self-denial  with  which  the  Christian's  life 
is  filled.  You  are  called  on  to  give  up  a  luxury',  and 
you  do  it.  The  little  piece  of  comfortable  living  is 
quietly  buried  away  underground.  But  that  is  not  the 
last  of  it.  The  small  indulgence  which  would  have 
made  your  bodily  life  easier  for  a  day  or  two,  or  a  year 
or  two,  undergoes  some  strange  alteration  in  its  burial, 
and  comes  out  a  spiritual  quality  that  blesses  and  en- 
riches your  soul  for  ever  and  ever.  You  surrender  some 
ambition  that  had  exercised  a  proud  power  over  you ; 
in  whose  train  and  shadow  you  had  hoped  to  live  with 
something  of  its  glory  cast  on  you.  You  send  that 
down  into  its  grave,  and  that  too  will  not  rest  there. 
It  comes  forth  again  with  its  old  vigor  purified  and 
spirituahzed,  but  made  more  strong  and  vigorous — a 
holy  desire  in  place  of  an  eager  passion,  as  different  as 
was  the  risen  Christ  who  gave  His  "  peace  "  to  His  dis- 
ciples from  the  yet  uncrucified  Christ  as  the  populace 
fancied  Him,  when  they  thought  that  they  could  "  take 
Him  by  force  and  make  Him  a  king."  You  surrender 
a  dear  friend  at  the  call  of  death,  and  out  of  his  grave 
the  real  power  of  friendship  rises  stronger  and  more 
eternal  into  your  life.  So  the  partial  and  imperfect 
and  temporary  are  always  being  taken  away  from  us  and 
buried,  that  the  perfect  and  eternal  may  arise  out  of 
their  tombs  to  bless  us.  So  our  life  is  like  the  life  of  a 
tree,  which  is  always  full  of  immediate  apparent  failure, 
which  is  always  dropping  back  after  each  rich  summer 
to  the  same  bareness  that  it  had  last  winter,  which 
keeps  no  leaves  or  fruit,  and  stands  again  and  again 
stripped  of  every  sign  of  life  that  it  has  put  forth,  and 
yet  which  still  has  gathered,  as  we  see  when  we  watch 


278  EASTER  DAY. 

it  with  a  larger  eye — has  gathered  all  those  apparent 
failures  into  the  success  of  one  long,  continuous  gi'owth ; 
has  not  lost  the  strength  of  those  old  summers,  but 
gathered  them  into  its  own  enlarged  girth  and  sturdier 
strength.  What  seemed  to  perish  and  die  has  really 
been  only  grown  in,  and  makes  the  mature  life  of,  the 
noble  tree.  And  so  it  is  with  our  hopes  and  plans  and 
endeavors  and  resolutions  and  thoughts,  which  seem 
to  fade  and  perish,  but  which,  if  we  have  the  Chris- 
tian vitality  about  us,  have  been  really  grown  in  and 
make  the  new  life,  which  is  not  merely  a  thing  of  the 
future,  but  a  thing  of  the  present.  They  are  not  simply 
taken  away  to  be  kept — the  child  that  you  saw  die,  the 
dream  that  you  saw  fade — to  be  kept  in  some  future 
state  till  you  shall  be  fit  to  come  and  get  them — 

"Kept  over  your  head  on  the  shelf." 

They  are  here  all  the  time ;  not  to  be  had  by  and  by, 
but  to  be  had  now.  They  can  be  had  in  their  spiritual 
return  to  you  by  and  by  only  as  you  fii'st  have  them 
and  keep  them  spiritually  now.  You  must  carry  their 
presence  with  you  into  the  future  state  or  you  cannot 
receive  them  there.  And  so,  as  we  said,  the  power  of 
the  future  resurrection  is  all  along  a  power  fii'st  of 
present  regeneration.  The  things  that  God  promises 
He  will  give  us  there  He  first  does  give  us  here,  and  so 
fits  us  to  receive  them  in  their  completer  giving.  The 
new  life  which  is  held  before  us  is  fii'st  wrought  out  by 
the  new  birth  creating  the  new  man  within  us. 

In  this  view,  how  very  shght  a  thing  is  death  !  How 
very  easy  it  becomes  for  us  to  understand  the  Bible 
story  that  Christ,  by  His  death  and  resurrection,  killed 


EASTER  DAY.  279 

death  and  took  away  its  victory  and  sting !  If  the  new 
spirit  is  formed  in  men  here,  if  you  and  I  may  have 
eternal  life  abiding  in  us,  clogged,  hampered,  and 
blinded,  indeed,  by  the  constraints  of  the  poor  body 
that  we  live  in,  and  yet  genuine  and  vital  even  here, 
and  if  death  be  nothing  but  the  breaking  down  of  the 
body  to  let  the  spirit  free,  then  how  clear  it  is !  Tlie 
word  of  summons  comes  and  the  soul  leaps  to  answer 
it.  The  eternal  life  in  us  answers  to  the  eternal  life 
beyond  the  grave,  recognizes  it,  flees  to  its  own.  There 
is  no  violence  of  transfer.  It  is  a  continiuition  of  the 
one  same  Hfe.  The  grave  is  only  the  moat  around  the 
inner  castle  of  the  King,  across  which  they  who  have 
long  been  His  loving  and  loyal  retainers  on  the  fai-ther 
side  enter  in,  sure  of  a  welcome  to  the  heart  of  His  hos- 
pitality. Far  above  any  morbid  or  affected,  unnatural, 
unhuman  pretense  of  a  wish  for  death  there  towers  this 
cakn  Christian  confidence,  ready  to  die,  yet  glad  to  stay 
here  until  the  time  comes ;  knowing  that  death  will  be 
release,  and  yet  finding  life  happy  and  rich  with  the 
power  of  the  resurrection  already  present  in  it ;  count- 
ing both  worlds  God's  worlds,  and  so  neither  despising 
this  nor  dreading  the  other.  That  is  the  Christian  light 
on  the  dark  river  and  the  fields  beyond,  that  streams 
forth  only  from  the  opened  door  of  Jesus'  tomb. 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  the  truth  of  the  new  man 
for  the  new  world,  the  regeneration  for  and  by  the 
resurrection.  That,  be  assured,  is  the  great  Easter 
truth.  Not  that  we  are  to  live  newly  after  death — that 
is  not  the  great  thing — but  that  we  are  to  be  new  here 
and  now  by  the  power  of  the  resurrection ;  not  so  much 


280  EASTER  DAY. 

that  we  are  to  live  forever  as  that  we  are  to,  and  may, 
live  nobly  now  because  we  are  to  live  forever. 

And  this  great  truth  of  Easter  will  decide  and  fix  the 
whole  character  of  the  religion  that  grows  up  about  it. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  it  wiU  establish  the  preeminent 
and  necessary  joyousness  of  true  religion.  Easter  Day, 
rightly  considered,  makes  the  religious  life  the  happiest 
of  all  lives,  and  insists  upon  our  always  treating  it  as 
j  such.  For  the  happiest  of  all  conditions  is  that  in 
which  one  is  the  partial  possessor  already  of  a  hope 
that  promises  its  own  completion.  The  child's  life  is 
so  very  happy  because  it  already  has  enough  of  the 
real,  conscious  manly  character  in  it  to  prophesy  more 
for  itself.  And  the  true  man  never  outgi'ows  the  child's 
joyousness,  because  he  keeps  always  a  future  before 
him  of  what  he  is  to  be,  suggested,  promised,  and  in 
part  reali2:ed  by  what  he  already  is.  The  two  unhappy 
and  joyless  conditions  would  be,  one  the  utter  absence 
of  hope,  and  the  other  the  possession  of  a  hope  that  was 
only  hope,  that  had  no  real  existence  in  the  present. 
So  a  religion  that  opened  no  eternity,  or  a  religion  that 
offered  no  beginning  of  eternal  life  until  the  other 
world  was  reached — either  of  them  would  be  unhappy ; 
one  with  despondency,  the  other  with  restlessness  at 
the  postponement  of  the  soul's  worthiest  ambitions. 
But  once  admit  this  power  of  the  resurrection  which 
we  have  seen ;  let  the  new  eternal  manhood,  formed 
within  us  now,  begin  to  promise  us  in  every  hope  and 
dream  and  glowing  picture  of  hoUness  what  the  new 
man  is  to  be  and  do  forever,  through  those  undivided 
ages  where  only  by  the  growth  of  love  and  worship  the 
eternal  souls  shall  know  that  eternity  is  growing  older  j 


EASTER  DAY.  281 

let  present  imperfection  be  at  once  consoled  and  stim- 
ulated ;  let  every  dissatisfaction  with  the  present  be 
made,  not  a  discouragement,  but  an  inspiration,  by  the 
continual  consciousness  of  the  great  law  of  eternal 
growth ;  let  the  everlasting  Saviour  be  always  speaking 
out  of  every  language  of  outer  and  inner  life  to  the 
immortal  soul,  "Thou  shalt  see  greater  things  than 
these ;"  "  What  thou  knowest  not  now  thou  shalt  know 
hereafter  " — and  then  can  such  a  rehgion  be  anything 
but  one  continual  joyousness  ?  The  whole  life  is  recast. 
Every  new  hindi-ance  or  delay  becomes  either  the  proof 
or  the  occasion  of  some  new  love.  Fear,  which  is 
always  partial  and  superficial,  is  cast  out,  and  the 
nature  is  submitted  utterly  to  the  gi-eat  profound  sway 
of  love.  "Worship  springs,  not  out  of  duty,  but  out  of 
eager  willingness.  It  becomes  the  heart's  own  glad 
registration,  by  one  "  Ebenezer "  after  another,  of  the 
progress  through  which  it  has  been  already  led.  The 
joyousness  as  well  as  the  holiness  of  eternity  begins 
within  us  even  now. 

At  least,  to-day,  my  friends,  let  us  remember  this : 
that  religion  is,  not  by  accident  or  chance,  but  by  its 
own  very  natm*e,  the  happiest  of  all  lives.  Just  so  far 
as  it  ever  grows  sad  and  gloomy,  it  grows  iri-eligious. 
This  is  the  true  index  of  the  power  of  the  resurrection. 

2.  And  this  same  joyousness  and  hopefulness  must 
extend  itself  and  cover  our  fellow-creatures  and  all 
nature.  That  man  ought  to  distrust  his  Christianity 
very  deeply  who  finds  that  when  he  has  become  a 
Christian  he  takes  no  more  large  and  hopeful  and 
charitable  view  of  his  fellow-men  and  their  lives  than 
lie  did  before.     The  glory  of  a  revealed  immortality  is 


282  EASTER  DAY. 

that  it  exalts  into  struggle  for  a  purpose  that  which 
seemed  to  be  only  the  restless  tossing  and  heaving  of 
mere  discontent.  You  have  a  neighbor,  for  instance, 
whose  whole  life  dissatisfies  you.  There  is  no  sym- 
metry about  it.  It  seems  to  be  made  up  of  mere  tire- 
some tossing  hither  and  thither,  back  and  forth,  under 
the  power  of  mere  passion.  He  is  neither  good  nor 
bad,  you  think.  He  does  good  things,  but  they  are 
done  with  no  persistency.  He  thinks  a  high  thought 
sometimes  that  surprises  you,  but  you  cannot  see  that 
it  has  any  place  or  meaning.  It  seems  to  have  wan- 
dered in  like  a  comet,  and  to  have  no  real  place  in  the 
system  of  his  mind.  He  does  kindnesses,  but  his  kind- 
ness is  all  fitful  and  unreliable,  broken  up  by  moods  of 
bitterness  or  gusts  of  temper. 

And  what  you  see  in  him  in  the  little  you  see  on  a 
larger  scale  in  the  great  world — poor  fitful  efforts  after 
goodness,  broken  and  distracted ;  a  mere  unrest  and 
moral  turmoil  everywhere.  What  can  interpret  it 
except  the  great  opening  of  an  eternity,  and  the  sight 
of  the  power  of  that  eternity  working  even  here? 
With  that  in  view,  we  come  to  a  large  and  tolerant 
suspense  of  judgment  that  is  good  for  us.  Who  can 
say  how  much  of  this  which  seems  purposeless  restless- 
ness is  really  purposeful  struggle  ?  The  wild,  confused 
waves  are  going  somewhere.  We  grow  to  a  sure  con- 
viction that  very  much  of  what  seems  bad  is  only  good 
unformed  and  struggling  under  the  power  of  the  resur- 
rection to  its  full  development  and  exhibition.  This,  I 
do  believe  most  deeply,  is  the  true  Easter  view  of  our 
disordered  world. 

I  am  not  preaching  any  mere  feeble  optimism.     I 


EASTER  DAY.  283 

am  not  weakly  calling  that  good  which  is  evidently  and 
finally  bad,  of  which  there  is  abundance  in  the  world. 
I  would  not,  just  for  the  sake  of  mental  and  moral 
relief  to  ourselves,  claim  that  the  world  is  going  right, 
when  so  e\'idently  and  in  so  many  ways  it  is  going 
wrong.  Even  on  Easter  Day  the  world  is  very  bad  and 
irreligious  and  untrue  and  impure.  But  I  count  him  a 
poor  Easter  Christian  who  does  not  feel  the  power  of 
the  resui-rection  filling  him  with  hope,  who  does  not 
gather  from  the  victory  of  Christ  a  firm  assurance  that 
the  good  is  stronger  than  the  evil,  and  who  does  not 
rejoice  to  know  that  some  at  least  of  the  doubt  and  l)e- 
wilderment  about  us,  some  at  least  of  what  seems  the 
decay  of  mere  corruption,  may  be  the  fermentation  of 
new  life  slowly  ripening  for  the  purposes  and  under 
the  power  of  that  immortality  which  Jesus  brought  us. 

I  wish  we  had  time  to  point  out  also  how  tliis  power 
of  the  resurrection,  this  new  eternal  manhood  once 
created  in  us,  transfigures  and  changes  not  merely  all 
internal,  but  all  external  things.  The  world  itself,  even 
material  nature — trees  and  fields  and  skies,  noontimes 
and  mornings,  sunsets  and  midnights — cannot  be  the 
same  when  they  are  found  to  be  the  education-place, 
the  school-room,  of  a  being  with  a  destiny  such  as  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  makes  known  for  man. 
We  cannot  think  of  them  as  made  only  to  feed  us  and 
to  warm  us  and  to  shelter  us — to  have  relation  only  to 
our  bodily  wants.  They  must  have  moral  uses.  They 
must  bring  moral  meanings  to  that  soul  which  this  new 
truth  of  immortality  exalts  to  be  the  monarch  of  the 
world.     You  say  that  this  is  poetry.     But  is  not  all 


284  EASTER  DAY. 

religion  poetry?  Is  not  every  Christian  by  the  very 
necessity  of  the  ease  a  poet?  There  is  no  poetry  on 
earth  like  the  Christian's  faith,  that  most  noble  of  all 
creative  powers,  "the  substance  of  things  hoped  for, 
the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  And  so  it  is  the 
commonest  Christian  consciousness,  belonging  not  only 
to  a  few  exalted  minds,  but  to  all  Christian  minds  in 
their  several  degrees,  that  to  them,  with  their  new  life, 
the  whole  world  of  nature  became  new  too,  had  new 
words  to  speak  to  them  of  God  and  of  eternity,  and 
that  all  through  theii*  lives  there  are  times  when  the 
enlightened  universe  becomes  vocal  and  its  visible  real- 
ities impart  to  them 

"  Authentic  tidings  of  invisible  things, 
Of  ebb  and  flow,  and  ever-during  power, 
And  central  peace  subsisting  at  the  heart 
Of  endless  agitation." 

But  most  of  all  this  power  of  the  resun-ection,  this 
present  apprehension  of  an  immortality,  transfigures 
the  whole  morality  of  our  lives.  What  is  it  to  do  our 
duty?  Ah,  how  many  of  us  know  the  slavery  and 
bondage  of  long  days  and  years,  when  with  no  enthusi- 
asm to  inspirit  us,  with  no  love  for  the  hard  tasks  that 
were  laid  upon  us,  we  have  just  tugged  away  at  things 
that  we  knew  we  ought  to  do,  under  a  vague  and 
dreaiy  instinct,  discouraged  and  disheartened  by  the 
continual  sense  of  how  poorly  we  did  them  after  all ! 
Ah,  all  that  is  changed  as  soon  as  the  Easter  truth  of 
the  new  man  is  shown  to  us — a  new  man,  made  in  the 
image  of  Him  that  created  him,  of  Him  who  rules  him. 
So  that  henceforth  there  is  not  merely  a  submission  of 
the  soul  to  the  law,  but  a  sympathy  of  the  soul  with 


EASTER  DAY.  285 

the  Lawgiver,  which  turns  morality  into  fidelity,  which 
breaks  the  hard  mask  off  from  the  mere  doing  of  duty 
and  turns  it  into  the  loving  service  of  the  Sa"\dour. 
There  are  many  great  and  exultant  moments  in  our 
hves ;  moments  in  which  some  new,  heretofore  unf elt 
motive  takes  us  into  its  power,  when  some  new  work 
for  us  and  some  new  power  in  us  starts  forth  and 
makes  life  seem  fresh  and  green,  like  a  spring  morning 
that  forgets  all  the  stains  and  storms  that  have  gone 
before  it.  But  among  all  such  moments  there  is  none 
that  can  compare  with  that  in  which  duty  passes  into 
love — when  morality,  reaching  itself  out  into  eternity, 
asserts  its  sameness  of  nature  with  the  service  that  the 
glorified  nature  is  to  render  to  God  in  the  heavenly 
city,  so  that  the  obligation  of  honesty  in  our  bargains 
is  seen  to  rest  on  the  same  sanctions  and  to  be  lustrous 
with  the  same  beauty  now  that  will  belong  to  the  sing- 
ing of  the  everlasting  songs  and  the  casting  of  the 
crowns  before  the  Saviour's  feet — the  moment  when 
our  life  thus  knows  Christ  and  the  power  of  His  resur- 
rection. 

I  have  tried  to  tell  you  what  that  power  is.  It  is  the 
power  of  a  realized  immortality,  the  power  of  a  per- 
sonal regeneration,  the  power  of  a  present  Christ. 

What  can  I  do,  then,  but  invite  you  aU  to  know  that 
power  by  earnest  self -surrender,  by  patient  prayer,  and 
by  a  childlike  faith  that  willingly  takes  into  its  loving 
life  the  willing,  living,  loving  Christ  of  Easter  Day? 
O  fellow-believers,  let  us  hope  that  at  His  table  now  we 
may  meet  Hrm  and  feast  with  Him,  and  deeply  know 
Him  and  the  power  of  His  resurrection. 


XIX. 
ASCENSION  DAY. 

"  And  a  cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sight. " — Acts  i,  9. 

"  Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  to- 
gether with  them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air :  and 
so  shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord." — 1  Thess.  iv.  17. 

Last  Thursday  was  Ascension  Day.  Then  we  re- 
membered how  the  Lord,  whose  story  we  have  once 
more  followed  through  the  months  of  this  winter  which 
is  now  past,  mysteriously  at  the  end  departed  from  the 
sight  of  men,  and  called  upon  their  faith  to  follow  Him 
and  recognize  His  power  still  at  work  even  when  they 
could  not  see  Him.  These  two  texts  which  I  have 
chosen  for  to-day  contain  the  story  of  the  Ascension. 
The  first  describes  the  fact  of  Christ's  departure.  The 
second  tells  us  what  His  departure  is  to  be  to  His  ser- 
vants ;  how,  even  in  that  last  and  crowning  experience 
of  life,  they  are  to  have  some  fellowship  with  Him. 

As  to  the  first  of  these,  the  story  of  what  actually 
took  place  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives,  I  have  always  felt 
that  the  Ascension  of  Jesus  was  the  event,  of  all  that 
are  recorded  of  Him  in  the  Gospels,  the  most  difficult 
to  present  to  the  imagination  in  any  picture  of  its  pos- 
sible methods  or  circumstances.  We  cannot  follow  it 
out  at  all  in  its  details.     We  have  to  rest,  I  think,  in 

286 


ASCENSION  DAY.  287 

the  mere  fact  of  His  departure  in  some  way  unlike  the 
old  familiar  way  of  death.  Something  which  had  been 
foreshadowed  in  the  mysterious  departures  of  Enoch 
and  Elijah  was  fulfilled  in  the  disappearance  of  the 
Lord  who  was  so  vastly  greater  than  His  servants  who 
had  gone  before  Him.  It  could  not  be  that,  once  hav- 
ing died  and  then  arisen  from  the  dead,  He  shoidd  at 
last  by  a  new  death  have  yielded  to  the  power  which 
He  seemed  to  have  subdued.  It  could  not  be  that, 
again  living  among  men.  He  should  just  live  on  forever, 
so  never  letting  His  ministry  pass  beyond  the  imper- 
fection of  the  visible,  always  drawing  the  hosts  of  be- 
lievers to  Jerusalem,  instead  of  lifting  them  up  purely 
to  His  spiritual  home,  in  holiness.  And  so  there  came 
a  disappearance  which  was  not  death ;  a  disappearance 
strange  and  mysterious,  but  not  more  wonderful  than 
had  been  the  life  and  character  of  Him  who  so  departed. 
I  think  that  any  man  who  had  watched  Jesus'  life  and 
understood  its  wondrousness,  and  then  stood  watching 
to  see  what  would  be  that  strange  life's  final  scene, 
could  have  asked  nothing  more,  could  hardly  even  have 
cared  to  know  the  details  of  method — how  this  marvel- 
ous body  had  gone,  where  it  had  gone — but  would  have 
accepted  and  acknowledged  the  perfect  fitness  of  the 
story,  when  the  disciples  with  calm  and  solemn  faces 
came  back  into  Jerusalem  and  only  said,  "While  He 
blessed  us  He  was  taken  up,  and  a  cloud  received  Him 
out  of  oirr  sight." 

It  is  not,  then,  the  physical  meaning  of  the  Ascension 
of  Christ  that  I  want  to  speak  of.  What  does  it  mean 
spiritually  ?  What  does  the  mysterious  going  away  of 
Him  who  for  three  and  thirty  years  had  lived  such  a 


288  ASCENSION  DAY. 

marvelously  human  life  upon  the  earth  mean  for  us 
whom  He  has  won  to  His  service  by  the  life  that  He 
hved  here  ?  And  the  first  thing  that  it  means,  I  think, 
is  the  assertion  of  the  necessarily  infinite  and  transcen- 
dental character  of  Christ,  the  estabUshment  of  the 
vastness  and  magnitude  of  the  relation  between  Him 
and  the  world.  See  what  I  mean.  Imagine  the  life  of 
any  one  of  the  disciples  of  our  Lord.  First  he  had 
been  a  Jew.  He  had  worshiped  God.  Far  off,  en- 
throned in  mystery  and  majesty,  God  had  been  true 
and  real  to  him.  He  had  knelt  in  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem. He  had  listened  in  the  synagogue  at  Caper- 
naum. He  had  meditated  as  he  floated  on  the  blue 
waters  of  Gennesaret.  Everj'where  he  had  known 
God,  but  an  unreality  had  haunted  all  his  knowledge. 
He  had  struggled  to  find  God,  but  God  had  eluded 
him.  He  knew  Him,  but  he  could  not  make  Him  real. 
Then  had  come  Jesus.  Wonderful  had  been  the 
months  that  they  had  spent  together.  Beautiful  and 
solemn  had  been  the  gradually  growing  certainty  that 
God  was  real.  The  commonest  things  had  been  inter- 
preters of  Him.  The  baked  bread,  the  penny  for  the 
taxes,  the  fishing-net  and  fishes,  the  water- jars  at  the 
wedding — all  of  them  had  seemed  to  be  right  in  the 
hands  of  God,  warm  with  His  divine  touch,  bright 
with  His  divine  smile.  We  can  understand  that.  We 
can  see  how  beautiful  it  was.  Can  we  not  also  see  a 
certain  danger  that  must  have  been  in  it  ?  As  a  child 
is  always  in  danger  of  coming  to  think  about  his  father 
as  the  provider  of  the  household,  as  the  willing  fur- 
nisher of  food  and  clothes  and  shelter  to  his  children, 
and  to  forget  the  real  heart  of  fatherhood,  the  care  for 


ASCENSION  DAY.  289 

the  character,  the  wish  for  spiritual  helpfulness,  so  may 
it  not  have  been  with  these  disciples  1  The  arrest  and 
death  had  violently  broken  the  spell,  indeed.  The  dis- 
ciples had  wakened  from  their  dream  that  this  sweet 
life  with  their  Master  could  go  on  forever — the  pleasant 
walks  across  the  breezy  hills  and  in  the  quiet  lanes; 
the  ready  table  spread  in  the  great  desert  place;  the 
happy  sight  all  thi-ough  the  long  day  of  this  kind,  lov- 
ing face.  That  was  all  gone  with  the  awful  night  when 
Judas  led  the  soldiers  to  Gethsemane.  But  even  after 
the  Resurrection,  Jesus  had  sat  with  them  at  table 
at  Emmaus,  and  He  had  met  them  by  the  familiar  lake 
and  multiplied  the  draft  of  fishes.  Still  their  souls 
clung  to  the  lower  forms  of  company,  and  even  to  the 
material  advantages  that  His  presence  would  bring 
them.  But  then  came  the  Ascension.  He  disappeared. 
All  the  constant  sight  of  Him  was  over.  They  had  to 
lift  their  eyes,  to  lift  their  hearts.  The  dear  familiarity 
which  they  had  gained  with  Him  never  could  be  lost 
again.  But  now  the  mystery,  the  majesty,  which  they 
must  have  lost  sometimes  came  back  again.  They 
could  no  longer  think  of  Him  as  the  multiplier  of  bread 
solely  or  chiefly.  The  higher  purposes  of  His  being 
filled  in  behind  His  special  acts.  The  greater  life  of 
their  souls  with  Him,  keeping  all  the  intimacy  of  their 
special  earthly  intercourse,  began.  Peter  and  John 
and  Andrew  and  Bartholomew  worshiped  the  unseen 
God  in  the  memory  of  their  own  dear  Jesus,  and  loved 
their  Jesus  with  all  the  profound  worship  which  they 
paid  to  God.  Life,  duty,  love,  and  prayer  became  large 
and  solemn,  while  they  still  kept  the  reality  and  person- 
alness  of  the  Incarnation. 


290  ASCENSION   DAY. 

And  now  is  not  that  something  perpetual  ?  Is  it  not 
something  that  comes  back  to  us  with  ever-new  fresh- 
ness as  we  come  back  ever  anew  to  the  wonder  of  the 
Ascension?  There  is  a  constant  tendency  of  religion 
to  belittle  itself.  As  it  becomes  real  to  us  the  ends  for 
which  it  exists  seem  often  to  grow  small.  This  always 
appears  in  men's  relations  to  Christianity  and  Christ. 
At  fii'st  God  seems  to  us  very  dim  and  far  away.  And 
yet  there  is  a  certain  awe  and  reverence  in  all  our 
thought  of  Him.  We  speak  with  bated  breath.  There 
comes  a  seriousness  into  our  faces  at  His  name.  Then 
comes  the  blessed  revelation  of  the  Gospel.  Christ  the 
Incarnate,  close  here  by  our  side,  tells  us  that  God  our 
Father  is  not  far  away.  He  teaches  us  that  aU  that 
interests  us  interests  Him.  He  tells  us  that  we  may 
ask  God  for  everything  we  want.  He  encourages  us  to 
lay  our  most  homely  burdens  at  His  feet.  The  mer- 
chant may  call  to  God  in  his  perplexity  of  business; 
the  school-boy  may  ask  for  help  in  his  hard  task ;  the 
sick  man  may  cry  out  for  health ;  and  no  appeal  for 
safety  from  any  poor  frightened  man  or  woman  shall 
go  unregarded.  This  is  the  glory  of  the  Incarnation — 
the  intimate,  personal  God.  But  is  there  no  danger? 
Once,  when  Jesus  was  on  earth,  an  eager,  passionate 
man  came  running  to  him,  hot  with  a  fiery  grievance, 
and  crying  out,  ''  Lord,  speak  to  my  brother,  that  he 
divide  the  inheritance  with  nie."  Once,  as  the  Saviour 
sat  with  a  woman  at  a  wellside  and  made  her  feel  how 
near  He  was  and  how  strong  He  was,  she  broke  out  at 
last  and  cried,  "  Sir,  give  me  this  water  that  you  speak 
of,  so  that  I  need  not  come  hither  to  draw."  Once, 
when  the  Lord  had  won  His  disciples'  trust  entirely, 


ASCENSION  DAY.  291 

two  of  them  came  to  Him  one  day  and  asked  Him  to 
promise  them  that  they  should  be  kings  in  the  kingdom 
which  they  thought  that  He  was  just  going  to  estabhsh. 
All  these  are  illustrations,  I  think,  of  the  way  in  which 
men  even  now  come  to  a  belief  in  Christ — catch  some- 
thing of  that  idea  of  the  nearness  of  God  which  is 
involved  in  the  Incarnation,  but  apply  it  onl}^  to  the 
lower  order  of  things,  and  are  inclined  to  deal  with  the 
Christ  in  whom  they  have  learned  to  believe  only  upon 
the  earthly  ground.  One  man  believes  in  Christ,  and 
thinks  that  His  rehgion  is  the  only  safeguard  of  good 
government.  Another  man  believes  in  Christ,  and  to 
him  the  Christian  faith  seems  to  be  almost  provided 
that  it  may  be  the  bulwark  of  his  favorite  conserva- 
tisms. Another  man  never  seems  to  get  beyond  the 
prayer  for  daily  bread,  though  he  never  could  have 
prayed  that  prayer  with  the  beautiful  and  childlike 
trust  that  fills  it  now  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  way  in 
which  Christ  has  made  manifest  to  him  the  all-provid- 
ing Father.  One  believer  can  never  get  his  thought  of 
Jesus  large  enough  to  transcend  his  own  little  set  or 
denomination  of  mankind.  Another,  though  he  looks 
beyond  the  line  of  death,  and  talks  much  of  what  Jesus 
is  going  to  do  for  him  in  the  other  world,  has  really 
made  that  otlier  world  onty  an  enlargement  of  this,  as 
earthly  as  the  earth  itself,  and  thinks  of  Jesus  there 
onl}^  as  saving  souls  from  pain  almost  as  material  as 
that  from  which  a  brave  fireman  plucks  the  child  whom 
he  rescues  from  a  burning  house.  Now  all  these  men 
are  believers  who  are  using  Christ  in  His  lower  offices. 
They  are  following  Him  like  the  multitude  who  ate  of 
the  loaves  and  were  filled,  and  then  came  hurrying 


292  ASCENSION   DAY. 

across  the  lake  that  they  might  still  be  with  Him  when 
the  famine  should  fall  on  them  again.  What  hosts  of 
Christians  such  as  these  there  are !  The  Master  does 
not  turn  them  off  for  the  imperfection  of  their  know- 
ledge, for  the  earthliness  of  their  needs,  and  for  the  low- 
ness  of  their  appeals  to  Him.  But  then  His  soul  longs  to 
have  them  meet  Him  upon  higher  ground,  to  have  them 
ask  Him  for  the  heavenly  things  with  which  His  nature 
aches  in  His  desire  to  give  them  away  to  those  He 
loves.  As  a  father  gives  his  children  bread  and  waits 
for  the  day  when  they  shall  ask  him  for  knowledge,  for 
sympathy,  for  hope,  for  inspiration,  for  noble  ideas,  and 
for  strength  to  meet  temptation,  so  Jesus  guards  your 
house  for  you,  makes  your  business  prosper,  holds  up 
your  head  in  sickness,  builds  you  the  pleasant  compan- 
ionship of  His  Church,  and  promises  you  happiness 
forever,  and  all  the  time  is  looking  anxiously  to  see 
your  face  glow  with  the  higher  desires  which  He  most 
loves  to  satisfy — with  the  desire  of  holiness,  of  a  divine 
unselfishness,  of  the  communion  with  Himself. 

But  now  imagine  that  the  Incarnate  Life  had  never 
passed  into  the  heavens.  Think  of  Jesus  here  on  earth. 
Can  we  imagine  anything  but  that  the  lower  uses  of 
His  life  would  have  usurped  men's  attention  ? — just  as 
in  those  days  of  the  Gospels  a  thousand  would  have 
flocked  to  Him  with  gaping  curiosity  or  selfish  greedi- 
ness for  one  who  came  with  a  soul  eager  and  hun- 
gry for  His  holiness,  a  thousand  would  have  clung  to 
His  strong  hand  for  one  who  craved  admission  to  His 
heart,  a  thousand  would  have  stood  amazed  at  His 
power  over  the  stubborn  forces  of  the  earth  for  one 
who  lived  with  Him  in  the  heavens,  where  His  soul  was 


ASCENSION   DAY.  293 

living  all  the  time.  But  now  the  Ascension  came.  It 
did  not  break  the  spell  of  the  Incarnation.  None  of 
us  believers  in  the  Lord  treads  the  most  fresh  and  un- 
explored new  soil  of  any  Western  praiiie  without  feel- 
ing that  it  is  the  same  earth  which  has  been  consecrated 
through  its  utmost  length  and  breadth  by  the  divine 
feet  of  Jesus.  The  Incarnation  keeps  God  forever  near 
and  real ;  but  when  we  cannot  find  the  God  incarnate 
still  visible  on  the  earth,  but  must  go  forth  into  the 
heavens  to  seek  Him,  that  effort  must  forever  help  us, 
however  we  stiU  dare  to  teU  Him  of  our  very  lowest 
and  most  humble  needs — that  effort  must  forever  help 
us  to  seek  Him  most  for  that  which  He  most  loves 
to  satisfy,  the  need  which  the  unseen  part  of  us  has 
for  the  unseen  part  of  Him,  the  need  which  our  soul 
has  for  His  soul,  the  need  of  being  made  holy  and 
heavenly. 

I  think  I  see  in  the  balance  of  wants  which  lies  in 
the  completest  Christian's  heart  and  finds  expression 
from  his  lips,  in  the  way  in  which  he  freely  asks  God 
for  the  smallest  things  he  wants,  and  yet  is  always 
drawn  away  from  these  petitions  to  sublimer  prayers, 
the  rich  and  ripe  issue  of  a  faith  which  has  in  it  a 
Bethlehem  and  a  Mount  of  Olives — an  Incarnation  and 
an  Ascension :  an  Incarnation  so  that  we  may  always 
pray  with  perfect  trust  and  confidence,  and  an  Ascen- 
sion so  that  we  may  always  pray  with  loftiness  and 
spu'itual  aspiration.  In  such  a  faith  Christ  is  always 
coming  to  us  here  upon  the  earth,  and  we  are  always, 
as  St.  Paul  promised  us  that  we  should  be  some  day, 
even  now  being  caught  up  in  the  clouds  to  meet  the 
Lord  in  the  air. 


294  ASCENSION   DAY. 

Is  there  not  something  that  corresponds  to  this  and 
lets  us  understand  it  in  the  history  of  every  friendship 
which  has  grown  strong  and  faniihar  here  upon  the 
earth  and  then  has  been  stretched  by  the  death  of  one 
of  the  friends  until  it  reaches  all  the  way  from  earth  to 
heaven  and  bridges  aU  the  gulf  between?  You  used 
to  see  your  friend  every  day.  You  talked  with  him 
of  httle  things.  You  grew  familiar  over  trifles.  The 
fields  under  your  feet,  the  merchandise  that  passed  from 
hand  to  hand,  tuterpreted  you  to  each  other.  The 
commonest  chat  over  the  newspaper  made  you  more 
truly  friends.  And  then  death  came,  and  none  of  that 
treasured  familiarity  is  lost  in  all  the  years  that  have 
passed  since  you  looked  into  his  face  for  the  last  time. 
He  is  as  near  to  you  as  ever.  He  is  with  you  on  the 
earth.  And  yet  you  think  of  him  more  loftily,  you 
seek  his  inspiration  more  solemnly,  you  invoke  his 
memory  as  a  more  sacred  spell  than  you  ever  were 
moved  to  look  for  in  his  daily  presence.  You  feel  your 
impurity  and  baseness  when  you  think  of  him  now,  as 
you  did  not  when  j^ou  used  to  sit  with  him  by  the  fire 
and  walk  with  him  in  the  streets.  He  is  the  same  to 
you,  but  gi-eater.  He  is  as  real,  but  far  more  lofty. 
He  has  not  ceased  to  meet  you  on  the  earth,  but  now 
you  also  meet  him  in  the  air,  and  so  he  influences  both 
the  least  and  the  greatest  part  of  you.  You  dress  your- 
self as  he  used  to  Hke  to  see  you  dressed,  and  you  try  to 
think  and  see  things  as  he  must  see  them  now  as  he 
stands  before  God's  throne. 

Let  us  try,  if  we  are  really  Christians  who  beheve 
that  Christ  our  Lord  has  "  ascended  into  heaven,"  to 
enter  into  His  heavenly  life  by  the  largeness  and  lofti- 


ASCENSION   DAY,  295 

ness  of  the  prayers  that  we  bring  to  Him.  God  forbid 
that  we  should  so  misread  His  exaltation  that  we  should 
hesitate  to  ask  Him  for  the  very  smallest  things ;  but 
the  things  that  belong  to  our  peace  are  what  He  wants 
to  give  us.  The  things  that  make  this  world  and  its 
interests  seem  small  when  we  think  of  them :  the  for- 
giveness of  sin,  the  perfect  purification  of  our  souls, 
the  driving  out  of  selfishness,  the  disregard  of  comfort 
in  pursuit  of  duty,  the  care  for  brethren  more  than  for 
ourselves ;  not  comfort,  not  spiritual  rest,  not  freedom 
from  pain  here  or  hereafter — not  these,  but  the  chance, 
the  power,  the  will  to  glorify  God  our  Father  in  our 
lives  as  He,  the  perfect  Son,  did  in  His — this  we  may 
ask  if  we  beheve  in  the  Ascension  and  have  understood 
the  heavenly  life  of  Him  who  is  still  our  Brother  and 
Saviour. 

Another  suggestion  which  comes  to  us  with  the  story 
of  the  Ascension  of  Jesus  is  that  of  the  true  associa- 
tion of  our  humanity  with  the  vastness  of  the  universe. 
I  have  already  said  how  difficult^ — indeed,  impossible 
— I  think  it  is  for  the  imagination  to  draw  any  pic- 
ture of  the  details  of  this  wonderful  event  on  which 
our  minds  are  fixed.  No  man  can  even  imagine  for 
me  what  was  the  fate  of  that  dear  flesh  and  blood 
which,  having  suffered  on  the  cross  and  lain  in  Joseph's 
tomb,  disappeared  from  the  disciples'  sight  upon  the 
Mount  of  Olives.  Wliere  it  was  carried,  what  changes 
it  underwent,  no  man  has  ever  known.  It  is  all  so  far 
past  our  knowledge  that  no  man's  guesses  have  the 
slightest  value.  We  do  not  wish  to  hear  them.  But 
yet  the  story  makes  this  fact  clear :  that  a  true  human 
life,  stni  truly  human,  passed  forth  beyond  our  human 


296  ASCENSION   DAY. 

conditions  and  found  itself  a  place  in  the  sublimest 
regions  of  the  universe.  I  cannot  trace  it,  but  that 
body  of  Christ  yet  lives  somewhere  in  some  mysterious 
and  unknown  region  of  this  vast  creation  in  one  little 
corner  of  which  we  live.  Humanity,  then,  so  the 
Ascension  tells  me,  may  be  at  home  somewhere  else 
than  on  the  earth.  It  has  nobler  kinships  than  with 
the  brutes.  It  may  enter  into  the  welcome  of  larger 
hospitality  than  any  that  the  stateliest  mountains  or 
forests  can  extend.  The  Resurrection  had  shown  that 
humanity  might  relive  here  upon  the  earth,  even  after 
the  catastrophe  of  death,  that  seems  so  terribly  the  end 
of  all.  The  Ascension  showed  that  out  bej^ond  the 
earth,  wherever  the  vast  system  of  existence  is  held  as 
a  unit  in  the  hand  of  one  Creator  who  is  Lord  of  all, 
out  to  the  end  of  all  things  over  which  God  reigns, 
this  humanity,  which  seems  to  be  shut  in  to  one  smaU 
planet,  may  go  and  find  a  home  and  kindred  beyond 
the  farthest  star. 

Is  that  a  gain  ?  If  every  enlargement  of  the  general 
life  of  the  race  is  a  boon  to  the  weakest  and  poorest 
being  who  bears  the  human  nature  and  who  comes  in 
sight  of  the  larger  outlook  of  his  kind,  then  surely  this 
gi-eat  Hght  thrown  on  the  range  of  human  existence  is 
indeed  a  gain  to  any  poor,  depressed,  and  struggling 
man  who  comes  to  believe  it.  The  slave  learns  that 
the  master  who  is  to  him  like  a  god  is  a  man  like  him- 
self. A  humanity  like  his  own  sits  in  those  stately 
haUs  and  walks  over  those  broad  fields.  A  struggling 
student  learns  that  his  humanity  has  risen  to  the  height 
ot  David's  song  or  Newton's  insight.  A  country  boy 
bect:ime!?  awar^  oi  'tht  stupendous  distances  to  which 


ASCENSION  DAY.  297 

men  like  himself  have  explored  the  globe,  and  of  the 
strange  transcendent  regions  in  which  they  have 
planted  their  human  homes.  A  self-respect,  a  noble 
ambition,  a  consciousness  of  freedom  and  of  chance, 
must  come.  A  great,  vague,  but  strong  call  must 
sound  out  of  the  distance.  This  dream  of  being  some- 
thing must  gather  into  a  vision  and  the  soul  leap  into 
the  heaven  of  new  hopes. 

I  turned  to  write  this  sermon  from  the  reading  of  a 
remarkable  article  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  in  which 
a  most  intelligent  and  observant  writer  has  told  the 
story  of  the  operatives  in  a  New  England  factory  town 
exactly  as  it  is  going  on  to-day.  It  is  a  terrible  tale ; 
not  for  the  suffering  of  which  it  tells,  not  for  the  con- 
scious misery  of  the  people — that  is  much  less  than 
perhaps,  in  our  sentimentality,  we  are  apt  to  think — 
but  for  the  blank  limitation  of  life,  the  utter  earthli- 
ness,  the  absence  of  high  thoughts  and  hopes,  the 
dreariness  to  which  humanity  has  been  reduced.  That 
is  what  makes  it  terrible.  To  turn  fi-om  such  a  story 
to  the  everlasting  record  of  how  once  a  human  being 
passed  beyond  the  cloud,  still  human,  and  those  who 
watched  Him  saw  Him  no  more,  but  there  came  back  to 
them  certain  assurance  that  He  still  lived  and  had  been 
welcomed  in  the  central  splendors  of  the  universe — it 
is  like  being  present  at  the  sunrise,  when  the  dark 
earth  finds  herself  full  of  glory,  and  partner  in  all  the 
greater  glory  iu  the  midst  of  which  she  swims.  The 
soul  that  truly  believes  the  story  which  it  reads  may 
be  still  deafened  by  the  clatter  of  machinery  and 
crowded  in  by  the  squalidness  of  the  low  town,  still 
jostled  in  the  dingy  streets  and  blinded  and  choked  by 


298  ASCENSION   DAY. 

the  dust  of  earth,  but  it  has  gained  the  freedom  of  its 
own  self -consciousness.  It  is  proud  with  the  pride  of 
an  imprisoned  king.  It  has  gone  forth  after  Christ.  It 
meets  him  in  the  au\  Fettered  and  fastened  down  in 
body,  yet  when  it  knows  that  the  human  Christ  has 
ascended  into  the  heavens,  with  its  human  heart  and 
mind  it  too  tliither  ascends,  as  the  coUect  so  nobly 
prays,  and  with  Him  continually  dwells. 

No  man  can  fully  comprehend  all  this  without  the 
whole  aspect  and  thought  of  death  being  changed  to 
him.  For  a  human  being  to  go  out  from  this  earth  is 
a  dreadful  thing  if  it  is  only  with  this  earth  that 
humanity  has  any  known  relation.  No  wonder  that  he 
would  rather  fret  himseK  against  the  wharf  than  cast 
adrift  upon  a  sea  that  has  no  other  shore.  He  goes  into 
the  outer  darkness.  He  leaps  off  from  the  precipice 
where  all  the  millions  have  leaped  before  him,  and  he 
knows  no  more,  for  all  the  millions  that  have  gone  be- 
fore him,  where  his  leap  wiU  carry  him.  But  now  let 
us  believe  in  the  Ascension.  Once  a  human  being,  the 
best  and  completest  of  all  human  beings  that  have  ever 
lived,  the  human  being  whose  humanity  was  perfect  by 
its  very  union  with  Divinity,  has  gone,  still  human, 
out  of  the  sight  of  men — gone,  evidently,  aU  ahve. 
We  cannot  trace  His  course.  The  cloud  received  Him. 
But  yet  we  know  that  somewhere  out  beyond  the 
limits  of  our  little  earth  that  true  humanity  of  His  has 
found  a  home.  Still  we  may  long  to  know  a  great  deal 
more ;  but,  knowing  that,  do  we  not  know  much  ? 
Humanity  can  live  beyond  the  earth,  can  keep  broad 
live  relations  with  the  universe.  The  man  who  goes 
to-day,  then,  goes  still  into  the  dark,  but  the  darkness 


ASCENSION   DAY.  299 

into  which  he  goes  is  pierced  now  by  a  path  of  light, 
and  at  its  heart  there  is  a  home  of  light  to  which  he 
goes.  For  His  humanity  has  claimed  its  place  in  the 
great  universe.  The  humanity  of  Jesus  has  gone  lie- 
fore  and  makes  the  vast  unknown  not  unfamiliar. 
Around  our  thought  of  it  oui*  thoughts  of  the  men  we 
have  seen  die,  oiu*  thoughts  of  our  own  coming  deaths, 
can  gather  into  confidence  and  calmness. 

A  great  man  died  yesterday — a  man  great  in  phUan- 
thi'opy ;  a  man  who  has  passed  through  all  the  tributes 
by  which  men  identify  and  own  their  heroes :  through 
hatred  and  scorn  first,  through  respect  and  honor  after- 
ward ;  a  man  whose  name  for  years  was  a  taunt  and 
byword  on  many  a  white  man's  Ups,  while  it  was  hope 
and  music  in  the  ears  of  the  trembling  negro ;  a  man 
whose  noble  career  will  forever  mark,  more  than  any 
other  man's,  the  progress  of  our  country  out  of  the  sin 
and  shame  of  slavery.  He  was  a  man  of  genuine  and 
true  humanity,  a  man  whom  those  who,  in  the  days  we 
well  remember,  hated  him  most,  to-day  will  name  with 
cordial  honor.  The  great  deep  changes  of  these  twenty 
years  could  find  no  more  striking  illustration  than  the 
fact  that  there  are  not  many  men  through  all  the  land, 
North  or  South,  who  will  not  stand  in  reverence  beside 
the  grave  of  Garrison. 

When  such  a  man  dies,  when  a  great  human  soul 
goes  forth  from  this  familiar  earth,  we  little  know  how 
much  of  the  assurance  with  which  our  hearts  stni  fol- 
low it,  and  think  vaguely,  but  assuredly,  of  the  con- 
genial work  to  which  it  will  be  set  in  some  new  region 
of  the  universe,  comes  to  us  from  that  sight  which  our 
faith  has  beheld  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  as  we  have 


300  ASCENSION   DAY. 

watched  the  humanity  of  Jesus  pass  out  to  its  eternal 
life  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the  earth. 

And  yet  this  is  not  all.  We  must  not  talk  as  if  it 
were  the  mere  glorification  of  the  general  humanity 
wliich  we  behold  in  the  Ascension.  Man  was  exalted 
then,  but  it  was  a  Man — one  whom  we  know,  one  whom 
we  understand  and  love,  one  who  is  everj^thing  to  us, 
one  whose  humanity  is  all  the  more  dear  and  true  be- 
cause He  is  vastly  more  than  man — it  was  a  Man  like 
this  who  passed  into  the  heavens  and  made  the  heavens 
forever  intelligible  and  near  and  sweet  to  us.  Let  us 
come  round  to  this  before  we  close.  If  on  some  hither- 
to unexplored  and  uninhabited  island  far  away  in  the 
seas  a  man  goes  to  hve,  whoever  he  may  be — the  poor- 
est and  least  interesting  of  our  race — he  clothes  the 
island  with  intelligibleness.  I  can  understand  and 
realize  its  existence  when  I  know  that  a  human  foot 
has  been  pressed  upon  its  sandy  beach.  If  he  is  a 
great,  strong,  notably  manly  man  who  goes  there,  car- 
rying with  him  a  large  share  of  our  humanity,  then  he 
gives  the  island  more  than  intelligibleness.  He  gives 
it  dignity.  It  is  full  of  interest.  We  aU  wait  to  hear 
what  he  is  doing  in  that  now  much-regarded  land. 
But  if  the  man  who  goes  there  is  my  friend,  and  if  be- 
fore he  goes  he  tells  me  that  the  island  is  ultimately  to 
be  his  and  mine,  that  he  is  going  to  make  it  ready  for 
my  coming,  that  he  will  come  back  again  and  take  me 
to  it  by  and  by,  then  how  that  island  burns  for  me — 
the  one  live,  real,  shining  spot  in  aU  the  world !  It  is 
the  goal  of  all  my  thoughts,  the  lodestone  of  my  hopes. 
I  think  of  it  until  the  familiar  house  in  which  I  was 
born,  and  where  I  am  living  still,  seems  strange  to  me 


ASCENSION  DAT.  301 

compared  with  that  one  shining  spot  that  has  become 
so  real.  My  friend's  love  makes  it  all  glow  and  burn 
before  me  as  if  I  myself  already  saw  the  sun  shining  on 
its  mountain-tops  and  flashing  on  the  surface  of  its  rip- 
pling streams. 

Can  anything  like  that  come  to  us  with  regard  to  the 
unknown  heaven  to  which  our  Lord  has  gone  ?  O  my 
dear  friends,  if  He  is  indeed  our  Lord,  all  that  must 
come  to  us.  Heaven  is  not  only  real  because  His 
humanity  is  there,  not  merely  glorious  because  His 
greatness  is  there.  It  is  dear  because  His  love  is  there 
— the  love  which  filled  His  earthly  hfe,  the  love  of  the 
miracle  and  of  the  wayside  teaching  and  of  the  cross. 
The  nearness  and  the  glory  might  be  there  and  yet 
heaven  not  lay  hold  of  our  hearts.  We  might  be  well 
content  to  stand  far  off  and  gaze.  We  might  not  want 
to  go  there.  We  might  not  hsten  for  messages,  nor 
send  our  feeble  voices  forth  in  prayer.  But  now  our 
Chi'ist  is  there,  our  Saviour,  what  wonder  if  the  earth  a 
thousand  times  seems  dull  and  wearisome,  and  always 
gets  its  best  brightness  from  that  other  world  in  which 
He  is,  of  which  this  is  the  vestibule  !  What  wonder  if 
we  listen,  and  know  that  He  must  speak  to  us  !  What 
wonder  if  we  want  to  tell  Him  all  about  our  life,  and 
our  hearts  know  that  He  can  and  will  hear  us  !  What 
wonder  if  the  hope  that  He  will  some  day  take  us  to 
Himself  abides  calm  and  constant  behind  all  the  tran- 
sitory hopes  of  life,  whicli  are  lighted  and  go  out  again 
and  again,  while  that  hope  remains  always  as  the  deep 
sky  remains  behind  the  coming  and  the  going  of  the 
stars ! 

All  tliis  the  Ascension  does  for  us.     "A  cloud  re- 


302  ASCENSION  DAY. 

ceived  Him  out  of  their  sight."  Into  mystery  and  a 
darkness  to  which  His  going  there  alone  gives  any  true 
light  oui-  Saviour  goes.  But  oh,  my  friends,  when  by 
and  by  our  way  leads  also  into  mystery  and  darkness, 
when  truth  becomes  covered  with  doubt,  and  joy  with 
sadness,  and  life  begins  to  feel  the  waiting  death,  what 
can  help  us  like  the  faith  of  the  ascended  Jesus  ?  The 
way  into  the  cloud  may  be  a  way  up  and  not  a  v.^ay 
down,  a  way  toward  Him  and  not  a  way  from  Him, 
Doubt,  sorrow,  death — these  may  be,  these  to  the  true 
soul  must  be,  like  the  clouds  over  the  Mount  of  Olives 
thi'ough  which  the  Son  of  God  went  up  to  the  right 
hand  of  His  Father.  "  We  which  remain  shall  be  caught 
up  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air:  and  so 
shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord.  Wherefore  comfort 
one  another" — comfort  yourselves  too,  comfort  and 
strengthen  yourselves  and  one  another — "with  these 
words." 


XX. 

WHITSUNDAY. 

"The  comnmnion  of  the  Holy  Ghost." — 2  Cor.  xiii.  14. 

The  great  benediction  of  the  Ckristian  Church  never 
grows  old  and  never  becomes  monotonous.  It  is  like  the 
sunshine,  which  rises  on  us  every  day  of  our  lives  with 
a  fresh  beauty ;  or  lU^e  our  truest  friendships,  which 
are  forever  new.  "  The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  love  of  God,  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  be  with  you  aU."  Among  the  blessings  invoked 
in  it  is  this  last :  "  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
Upon  how  many  ears  has  the  invocation  of  that  bless- 
ing fallen !  How  many  souls  have  felt  the  peace  and 
assui'ance  that  was  in  it  descend  upon  them  as  if  it  f  eU 
out  of  the  opened  heaven  !  And  yet  how  vague  to 
many  of  those  who  love  it  most  is  the  fuU  meaning  of 
the  phrase !  It  is  well,  I  think,  that  we  should  study 
it  to-day.  For  to-day  another  Whitsunday  is  here. 
Again  the  door  stands  open,  and  we  look  into  the 
chamber  where  the  pentecostal  gi'ace  was  given  to  the 
Jewish  peasants  which  made  them  the  teachers  of  the 
world.  Again  we  see  the  tongues  of  fire  burning  over 
the  disciples'  heads.  Again  we  witness  the  true  birth 
of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  gift  of  the  communion 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.     It  is  good  for  us  to  draw  near 

303 


304  WHITSUNDAY. 

reverently  and  try  to  understand  the  wonder  as  we 
may,  for  the  power  of  which  the  Church  was  bom  is 
the  power  by  which  it  has  lived  ever  since  and  is  living 
now.  And  for  us,  as  for  those  apostles,  there  is  no 
blessing  more  continually  needed  than  "the  commu- 
nion of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

We  go,  then,  first  to  the  perpetual  and  universal 
facts  of  human  life,  for  Christianity  always  uses  them 
and  is  in  harmony  with  them.  And  one  of  the  deepest 
of  these  facts  is  man's  perpetual  need  of  intercom-se 
and  fellowship.  A  life  of  sohtude  is  never  satisfactory 
to  a  truly  healthy  man.  He  needs  some  fellowship. 
And  for  his  whole  satisfaction  he  needs  various  fellow- 
ships :  with  those  above  him,  on  whom  he  depends ; 
with  those  beside  him,  who  are  his  equals ;  and  with 
those  below  him,  whom  he  helps.  All  three  of  these 
relationships  furnish  the  life  of  a  completely  furnished 
man.  And  the  essence  of  aU  these  fellowships  is  some- 
thing internal ;  it  is  not  external.  It  is  in  spirit  and 
sympathy,  not  in  outward  occupations.  It  is  commu- 
nion and  not  merely  contact.  This  goes  so  far  that 
where  communion  is  perfect,  where  men  are  in  real 
sympathy  with  one  another,  contact  or  outward  inter- 
course may  sometimes  be  absent.  I  said  no  man  was 
satisfied  with  a  wholly  solitary  life ;  but  a  man  may  be 
satisfied  with  a  very  silent  life.  If  he  can  be  assui-ed 
of  sympathy  with  other  men,  can  know  that  he  shares 
their  feelings  and  that  they  share  his,  he  can  be  con- 
tent that  very  few  words  should  pass  between  them, 
conscious  all  the  while  of  a  communion  that  lies  deeper 
than  communication.  What  a  man  really  needs,  then, 
is  a  true  understanding  of  other  men,  community  of 


WHITSUNDAY.  305 

intelligence  producing  community  of  sentiment,  inter- 
est in  the  same  things  producing  the  same  feelings. 
This  is  communion.  And  then  the  second  fact  is  that 
the  communions  or  fellowsliips  of  men  are  seldom 
direct,  but  come  about  through  a  medium.  They  are 
not  the  mere  liking  of  men  for  each  other  for  quali- 
ties directlj^  apprehended,  but  they  are  the  result  of  a 
common  interest  in  something  which  brings  the  men 
together  and  is  the  occasion  by  which  their  sympathy 
is  excited,  the  atmosphere  or  element  in  which  their 
communion  lives.  Is  not  this  so?  Two  children  in 
the  same  family  grow  up  in  cordial  love  for  each  other ; 
but  their  love  is  a  love  of  and  in  the  family.  They 
did  not  deliberately  choose  each  other  for  friends, 
but  theii*  hearts  were  drawn  out  in  the  same  direction, 
toward  the  same  father,  the  same  mother,  the  same 
home  life,  and  so  they  met  and  came  to  know  each 
other.  So  two  scholars  find  theii-  element  of  commu- 
nion in  theii"  common  stud}'.  Two  business  men  reach 
each  other  and  become  friends  through  their  common 
business.  Two  artists  leani  and  love  each  othei*'s 
natures  tlirough  the  intei'pretation  of  the  beautiful 
work  in  which  they  are  both  engaged.  Two  soldiers' 
hearts  beat  together  in  the  throbbing  heat  of  the  same 
battle.  And  two  reformers  enter  into  each  othei''s  life 
in  the  indignation  or  enthusiasm  of  a  common  cause. 
In  every  case  you  see  the  union  of  men  is  made  through 
a  third  term,  an  element  into  which  both  enter,  and  in 
which  they  find  each  other  as  they  could  not  without 
it.  This  is  the  way  in  which  men  come  to  be  gathered 
in  those  groups  which  make  the  variety  and  picturesque- 
ness  of  human  life.     The  men  of  business  are  gath- 


306  WHITSUNDAY. 

ered  in  that  mutual  understanding  which  is  born  of 
their  common  occupations ;  their  personal  sympathies 
are  presided  over  by  and  are  included  in  the  commu- 
nion of  business ;  the  scholars  are  gathered  in  the  com- 
munion of  learning,  the  artists  in  the  communion  of 
art,  the  philanthropists  in  the  communion  of  philan- 
thropy; while  men,  as  men,  as  separate  from  all  the 
other  orders  of  beings  which  fill  the  universe,  hold 
their  personal  relationships  all  included  in,  all  under 
the  sanction  of,  their  common  human  nature,  all 
embraced  in  and  sealed  by  the  great  communion  of 
humanity. 

Now  it  is  in  the  application  of  this  same  idea  that 
there  lies,  I  think,  the  key  to  this  phrase,  ''the  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Once  more  there  is  an 
element,  an  atmosphere,  in  which  men  are  brought 
close  together — brought  together  as  they  come  under 
no  other  auspices,  in  no  other  way.  That  element  is 
God.  Men  meet  each  other,  when  they  meet  in  Him, 
with  peculiar  confidence,  dearness,  frankness,  and 
truth.  Just  as  there  is  a  certain  character  which  be- 
longs to  the  intercourse  of  men  who  are  met  as  the 
pursuers  of  a  common  business,  and  so  are  met  in  the 
communion  of  that  business ;  and  there  is  another 
character  which  belongs  to  the  intercourse  of  men  who 
are  met  as  the  disciples  of  a  certain  study,  and  so  are 
met  in  the  communion  of  that  study,  so  there  is  yet 
another  deeper  and  completer  character  which  belongs 
to  the  fellowship  of  men  who  come  to  have  something 
to  do  with  one  another  as  the  servants  of  God,  and 
so  whose  communion  is  the  communion  of  God.  Not 
directly,  not  simply  for  the  apprehended  and  appreci- 


WHITSUNDAY.  307 

ated  qualities  which  they  perceive  in  each  other,  but 
two  men,  both  of  whom  love  and  are  trying  to  serve 
God,  even  before  they  know  anything  more  about  each 
other,  are  united  in  that  fact,  and  all  their  later  union 
and  the  gradual  mutual  understanding  which  grows 
up  between  them  grows  up  within  that  fact  and  is  all 
filled  by  it.  All  their  fellowship  is  a  fellowship  by  and 
through  God.  Then-  communion  is  the  communion  of 
God. 

And  now  take  one  step  farther.  Who  is  the  Holy 
Ghost?  I  do  not  want  to  talk  to  you  theologically  this 
morning.  I  want  to  speak  of  the  Holy  Ghost  purely 
with  reference  to  this  one  work,  the  communion  which 
He  makes  between  men.  But  who  is  the  Holy  Ghost  ? 
He  is  the  effectively  present  Deity.  He  is  God  contin- 
ually in  the  midst  of  men  and  touching  their  daily 
lives.  He  is  the  God  of  perennial  and  daUy  inspiration, 
the  Comforter  to  whom  we  look  in  the  most  pressing 
needs  of  comfort  which  fill  our  common  life.  He  is 
the  God  of  continual  contact  with  mankind.  The  doe- 
tiine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  continual  protest  against 
every  constantly  recm'ring  tendency  to  separate  God 
from  the  current  world.  A  God  who  made  the  world 
and  then  left  it  to  run  its  course  under  the  tp'anny  of 
force  and  law ;  a  God  who  redeemed  the  world  eighteen 
centuries  ago  and  left  it  to  be  blessed  by  or  to  miss  the 
blessing  of  the  redemption  which  He  had  provided — 
neither  of  these  ideas  of  Deity  can  comprehend  the 
tnith  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  A  present  God,  an  ever- 
living  God,  an  ever-pleading,  ever-helping,  ever-saving 
God — this  is  the  God  whom  Christ  told  of  and  prom- 
ised, the  God  who  came  in  the  miracle  of  Pentecost 


308  WHITSUNDAY. 

and  is  forever  here.  And  now  add  this  idea  to  what 
we  said  before.  Wherever  the  fellowship  and  inter- 
course of  men  has  a  peculiar  character  because  it  is 
born  of  the  presence  of  God  among  men ;  wherever 
men's  dealings  with  each  other,  or  men's  value  of  each 
other,  is  colored  with  the  influence  of  the  truth  that 
we  live  in  a  world  full  of  God ;  wherever  oiu"  commu- 
nion with  each  other  takes  place  through  Him,  the 
sacredness  and  usefidness  of  what  we  are  to  each 
other  resulting  from  what  He  is  to  all  of  us,  then  our 
communion  is  a  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Do  I  make  this  plain  ?  Here  are  two  groups  of  men. 
They  both  hold  together  in  their  own  ways.  But  one 
of  them  is  united  by  the  mere  liking  of  individual  for 
individual.  The  other  is  bound  together  by  common 
allegiance  to  a  principle.  One  is  like  a  mass  of  sand 
crowded  and  pressed  together  so  that  particle  clings  to 
particle  and  a  show  of  soHdity  is  presented.  As  soon 
as  the  sand  grows  dry  the  cohesion  disappears  and  the 
whole  mass  falls  apart.  The  other  is  hke  a  gathering 
of  iron-dust  about  a  magnet,  where  each  particle  holds 
fast  to  its  neighbors  by  the  pervading  power  of  the 
magnetic  influence  that  fills  them  all.  Then,  if  you 
substitute  a  person  for  the  principle,  and  make  grati- 
tude and  loyalty  the  power  that  holds  the  men  together, 
you  come  nearer  to  the  idea.  Who  has  not  seen  and 
felt  the  beauty  of  a  company  of  men  held  into  brother- 
hood by  their  enthusiastic  affection  for  one  central  man 
who  overtopped  them  all  and  dropped  his  bounties  into 
all  their  hves?  His  name  became  the  watchword  of 
their  union.  Their  whole  great  company  seemed  to  be 
filled  with  and  repeat  his  character.    And  then,  if  for 


WHITSUNDAY.  309 

all  lower  persons  you  substitute  God,  and  think  of  men 
as  bound  together  and  doing  all  good  things  to  one 
another  because  they  axe  His  children  and  receive  alike 
His  daily  goodness,  then,  in  a  world  of  men  whose 
principle  of  unity  is  a  forever-present  Deity  whom  they 
all  love,  you  have  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Or  see  it  in  an  illustration  of  it.  You  go  into  some 
foreign  land,  where  men  are  very  different  from  what 
you  have  known  them  here.  You  find  men  there — men 
with  the  common  human  form,  and,  as  you  come  to 
know  them,  with  the  common  human  characters  and 
passions.  It  is  not  in  our  human  nature  not  to  feel  a 
fellowship  with  those  human  beings.  Simply  as  atom 
to  atom,  your  humanity  is  drawn  to  theirs.  With  an 
interest  such  as  no  brute  inspires,  they  take  hold  of 
your  life.  There  is  the  communion  of  humanity  be- 
tween you.  But  suppose,  as  you  go  on  and  know  them 
better,  you  find  that  among  them  there  are  some  whom 
God  has  touched,  and  who  are  drawing  toward  Him, 
loving  Him,  trying  to  do  His  will.  It  may  be  very 
blindly,  it  may  be  through  a  heavy  mass  of  brutal 
ignorance,  or  through  the  tortuous  channels  of  some 
fantastic  superstition,  but  in  some  way  they  are  show- 
ing the  power  of  a  present  God.  The  Holy  Ghost  has 
reached  them.  They  see  dim  streaks  of  spiritual  light. 
They  make  vague  flutterings  of  spiritual  desire.  Or 
suppose  the  other  extreme.  Suppose  these  souls  you 
find  are  lofty,  pure,  wise  souls — souls  far  above  you  in 
spiritual  light  and  vigor.  In  either  ease,  do  not  you,  a 
man  who,  in  j'-our  own  degree,  are  li\ang  in  the  power 
of  a  present  God,  find  yoiu-seif  drawn  into  the  fellow- 
ship of  these  kindred  souls,  whether  they  are  higher  or 


310  WHITSUNDAY. 

lower  in  the  spiritual  life  than  you  are?  Your  soul 
recognizes  a  servant  of  the  Lord  it  serves.  He  may  be 
above  or  below  you  in  the  household,  but  he  serves  the 
same  Master.  Through  that  Master  you  are  brought 
together.  In  your  common  search  for  holiness  under 
the  care  of  Him  from  whom  holiness  proceeds,  you 
meet  each  other.  It  is  the  communion  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

I  doubt  not  there  is  a  deeper  philosophy  in  this  than 
we  can  understand.  The  Bible  truth  is,  we  have  de- 
clared this  morning  our  belief,  that  the  Holy  Clhost  is 
^*  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  life."  The  power  of  life  is  the 
power  of  unity  everywhere.  It  is  the  presence  of  life 
in  these  bodies  of  ours  that  keeps  them  from  falling 
to  pieces.  The  moment  that  life  departs  dissolution 
comes.  Health  is  the  true  and  close  relationship,  the 
happy  ministry,  of  part  to  part.  And  so  life,  which  is 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost — nay,  which  is  the  presence 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  society  or  in  the  soul — is  the 
power  of  unity  in  society  or  in  the  soul.  The  society 
in  which  there  is  no  presence  of  a  living  God  drops  into 
anarchy  and  falls  to  pieces.  The  soul  in  which  there  is 
no  presence  of  a  living  God  loses  harmony  with  itself, 
becomes  distracted.  Sin  is  incoherent  and  disintegrat- 
ing. Goodness  is  the  power  of  coherence.  No  mere 
compact  of  man  with  man  or  nation  with  nation  can 
ever  bring  about  reliable  and  settled  peace ;  no  mere 
aggregation  of  selfishnesses  in  treaties  and  confedera- 
tions can  ever  obliterate  the  awful  fact  of  war — nothing 
but  a  common  love  of  God  and  obedience  to  His  laws 
and  enthusiasm  for  His  will;  not  a  communion  of 
policy,  or  a  communion  of  good  nature,  or  a  commu- 


WHITSUNDAY.  311 

nion  of  unambitious  indolence,  but  a  communion  of  tbe 
Holy  Ghost. 

Again,  our  idea  finds  its  illustration  in  the  different 
characters  of  different  households.  I  think  that  all  of 
us  must  be  able  to  see  it  there.  Lift  the  curtain,  if 
you  will,  from  two  homes,  both  of  them  happy  and 
harmonious,  neither  of  them  stained  with  vice  nor  dis- 
turbed with  quarrels.  One  of  them  is  a  household  of 
this  world  altogether.  The  domestic  relationships  are 
strong  and  warm.  The  loves  of  husband  and  wife,  of 
parents  and  children,  of  brothers  and  sisters,  are  all 
there.  They  prove  themselves  in  all  kind  offices.  Each 
helps  the  other,  and  there  are  no  jealousies,  no  strifes. 
There  is  the  best  picture  of  the  communion  of  the 
family  affection.  Now  look  into  the  other  home.  AU 
is  the  same,  but  with  this  difference :  that  here  there  is 
an  ever-live,  strong,  vi\'id,  loving  sense  of  God.  As 
real  as  father  or  mother,  as  real  as  brother  or  sister, 
God  is  here.  No  act  is  ever  done  out  of  His  presence. 
He  is  felt  in  the  education  of  the  children.  The  chil- 
dren are  His  gifts.  The  love  of  each  member  of  the 
household  for  the  rest  is  colored  all  through  with  grat- 
itude to  Him.  All  of  that  love  is  deepened  because 
each  desires  for  each  sacred  and  spiritual  mercies. 
My  dear  friends,  there  are  such  households ;  not  house-, 
holds  where  the  family  affections  have  been  crowded 
out  by  religious  feeling,  but  where  they  have  been 
deepened  and  transfigured  by  it ;  where  parents  love 
their  children  better,  and  children  love  their  parents 
and  one  another  better,  because  they  all  love  God ;  where 
the  common  intercourses  of  home  are  signs  of  some- 
thing deeper,  and  really  signify  the  communion  of  the 


312  WHITSUNDAY. 

Holy  Ghost.  What  does  it  mean  when  religion  enters 
into  a  family,  when  over  all  the  home  life  is  stretched 
out  the  hand  of  God,  and  all  a  household  is  converted  ? 
I  do  not  know  how  to  tell  the  story  of  what  happens 
then — of  the  deep,  sweet,  solemn  change  that  comes 
over  all  the  family  experience — except  by  just  this 
phrase :  that  the  communion  of  natural  affection  has 
passed  into  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  All 
these  loves  which  were  there  before  move  on  still,  but 
they  are  all  surrounded  by  and  taken  up  into  one  great 
comprehending  love ;  and  he  who  enters  in  at  the  door 
of  that  converted  house  hears  them  all  in  deepened, 
richened  music,  the  same  strains  still,  only  full  of  the 
power  of  the  new  atmosphere  in  which  they  are  played. 

And  so  it  is  with  friendship.  Two  men  who  have 
known  each  other  for  years  become  together  the  ser- 
vants of  Christ.  His  spmt  comes  to  them.  They  begin 
the  new  life  of  which  He  is  the  center  and  the  soul. 
How  their  old  friendship  changes !  How  it  is  all  the 
same,  and  yet  how  different  it  is  !  It  opens  depths  and 
heights  they  never  dreamed  of.  Wliere  they  used  to 
do  so  little  for  each  other,  now  they  can  do  so  much. 
Where  they  used  to  touch  only  on  the  outside,  now 
their  whole  natures  blend.  They  have  taken  friendship 
and  planted  it  where  it  belongs,  in  the  soil  and  air  of 
the  divine  love;  and  it  opens  its  essential  richness  as 
the  tropical  flower  which  has  been  living  a  half -life  in 
northern  soil  tells  its  whole  sweet  and  gorgeous  story 
of  itself  when  it  is  carried  to  the  bright  skies  and  warm 
ground  for  which  God  made  it. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  changes  which  comes  to  a 
human  friendship  when  it  is  thus  deepened  into  a  com- 


WHITSUNDAY.  313 

munion  of  tlie  Holy  Ghost  is  the  assurance  of  perma- 
nence which  it  acquires.  There  is  always  a  lurking 
distrust  and  suspicion  of  instability  in  friendship  which 
has  not  the  deepest  basis.  No  present  certainty  an- 
swers for  the  future.  Present  kindness  only  tears 
witness  of  present  regard,  and  each  new  moment  needs 
its  new  proof.     How  we  have  all  felt  this ! 

"Alas  that  neither  bonds  nor  vows 
Can  certify  possession ! 
Torments  me  still  the  fear  that  love 
Died  in  its  last  expression." 

This  must  be  so  to  some  degree  with  an  affection  where 
each  is  held  to  each  only  by  the  continuance  of  personal 
liking.  But  when  friendship  enters  into  God,  and  men 
are  bound  together  through  theii*  common  union  with 
Him,  all  the  strength  of  that  higher  union  authenti- 
cates and  assures  the  faithfulness  and  perseverance  of 
the  love  that  is  bound  up  with  it.  The  souls  that  meet 
in  God  may  well  believe  that  they  shall  hold  each  other 
as  eternally  as  He  holds  each  and  each  holds  Him. 

And  the  same  power  which  insures  the  perpetuity  of 
friendship  must  also  secure  a  wider  range  of  sympathy 
and  fellow-feeling  among  men.  The  more  the  associa- 
tions of  men  come  to  consist  in  what  is  essential,  and 
not  in  what  is  merely  formal,  the  larger  becomes  the 
circle  of  a  man's  fellow-creatures  with  whom  he  may 
have  relations  of  cordial  interest.  So  much  of  our 
communion  with  men  is  a  communion,  not  of  spirit, 
but  of  form.  We  associate  with  men  because  we  hap- 
pen to  be  thrown  in  with  them  in  the  mere  circum- 
stances of  our  lives ;  because  we  live  in  the  same  circle 


314  WHITSUNDAY. 

of  society,  and  so  our  habits  are  the  same ;  because  we 
are  seeking  the  same  ends  of  life  in  the  same  kind  of 
actions.  And  very  often  our  sympathies  are  bounded 
by  the  same  narrow  lives  which  limit  our  associations. 
But  the  communion  of  the  spirit,  the  communion  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  is  something  deeper,  and  therefore 
something  wider,  than  that.  Wherever  any  human 
soul  is  loving  the  God  whom  we  love,  feeling  His  pres- 
ence, trying  to  do  His  wiU,  though  it  be  in  forms  and 
ways  totally  different  from  ours,  the  communion  pf  the 
Holy  Ghost  brings  us  into  sympathy  with  hun.  There 
is  no  influence  of  the  Christian  life  more  ennobling, 
more  delightful,  than  this.  The  more  you  come  into 
communion  with  God,  catch  His  spirit,  understand  His 
life ;  the  more  quick  your  eye  becomes  to  detect  the 
spiritual  life  of  other  men,  though  it  be  hidden  under 
the  strangest  forms,  the  more  broad  your  heart  grows 
to  embrace  it.  Coming  to  love  God  is  like  climbing  a 
high  mountain.  It  takes  you  out  of  the  low  valley  of 
formal  life.  It  sets  you  upon  the  open  summit  of  spir- 
itual sympathy,  close  to  the  sun.  Thence  you  look  out 
into  unguessed  regions  of  noble  thought  and  living, 
with  which  you  never  dreamed  that  you  had  anything 
to  do.  Oh,  upon  Whitsunday  that  all  seems  so  plain 
which  sometimes  seems  so  dark  and  diflBcult.  It  is  not 
by  working  aAvay  upon  our  forms  and  organizations 
and  trying  to  make  them  coincide  that  the  present 
miserable  divided  condition  of  Christendom  is  to  be 
outgi'own.  It  is  only  by  the  perception  of  one  another's 
earnest  spiritual  purpose  underneath  their  different 
methods  that  Christian  sects  like  those  that  di\'ide  our 
Christian  world  can  come  to  anything  like  sympathy 


WHITSUNDAY.  315 

or  iinion  with  one  another.  And  they  can  come  to  know 
one  another's  spirit  only  as  they  come  to  know  God,  and 
to  understand  how  much  more  is  the  spirit  than  the 
form  to  Him.  It  is  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
in  which  Christians  must  meet.  If  they  could  only 
meet  in  that  high  atmosphere  they  would  make  very 
short  work  of  these  terrible  differences  of  form  and 
organization  which  trouble  them  so  much  now.  They 
would  no  more  quarrel  about  them  than  two  soldiers 
meeting  on  the  wall  of  an  enemy's  citadel  to  capture  it 
would  quarrel  about  the  different  patterns  of  the  scal- 
ing-ladders by  which  they  climbed  there. 

But  meanwhile  is  it  not  a  very  lofty  and  inspiring 
ambition  to  offer  to  a  man,  that  the  more  he  knows 
and  loves  God  the  more  he  shall  see  the  noble  and  the 
good  in  aU  his  brethi'en  ?  We  should  like  to  believe  in 
men  so  much  more  than  we  do !  "We  are  almost  ready 
to  give  up  in  despair ;  the  meanness,  the  foulness,  the 
cruelty  of  humanity  crowd  on  us  so.  It  is  a  great 
promise  to  make  to  a  young  man  when  j'^ou  say  to  him, 
"If  you  will  earnestly  try  by  obedience  and  love  to 
enter  into  communion  with  God,  these  brethren  of 
youi'S,  who  are  like  sealed  books  with  stained  covers, 
shall  open  to  you,  and  you  shall  see  goodness,  noble- 
ness, truth,  devotion,  aU  through  them."  It  is  a  prom- 
ise  which,  if  he  takes  it,  may  be  his  salvation  from 
wi'etched  cynicism  and  despaii*.  There  never  was  a 
man  who  really  tried  to  serve  God  who  did  not  have 
his  sjTnpathy  with  his  fellow-men  widened  thereby. 

Here  is  the  difference  between  religious  and  secular 
philanthropy.  Secular  philanthropy  loves  and  helps 
men  directly,  for  themselves,     Rehgious  philanthropy 


316  WmTSUNDAY. 

loves  and  helps  men  in  God.  Secular  philanthropy  has 
often  a  tendency  to  despise  the  people  whom  it  helps. 
Its  pity  is  streaked  with  scorn  or  disgust.  Religious 
philanthropy  is  always  growing,  as  it  becomes  more 
religious,  more  reverent  toward  the  beggar  whom  it 
feeds,  or  the  sick  man  whose  bed  it  smooths.  Secular 
philanthropy  is  always  dwelling  on  the  duty  of  charity. 
Religious  philanthropy  is  the  overflow  of  brotherly 
kindness,  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  There 
is  much  of  so-called  religious  philanthropy  that  never 
gets  above  the  secular  spirit,  and  much  of  so-called 
secular  philanthropy  that  is  loftier  and  finer  and  more 
religious  than  it  knows ;  but  these  are  the  distinctions 
that  lie  between  the  help  which  men  give  to  one  an- 
other for  themselves  and  the  help  which  they  give  to 
one  another  for  the  love  of  God,  whose  love  inwraps 
them  both. 

It  is  time  for  me  to  stop,  for  here  there  waits  for 
us  the  sacrament  of  the  holy  communion,  which  shaU 
illustrate  to  us,  as  we  receive  it,  all  that  I  have  said. 
I  hav6  not  dwelt  upon  all  of  the  great  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  whose  manifestation  at  the  Pentecost  we 
celebrate  to-day.  I  have  not  tried  to  tell  of  that  trans- 
forming work  upon  the  soul  by  which  He  makes  it 
anew  into  the  image  of  Christ.  I  have  dwelt  only 
upon  this:  that  as  we  come  to  Him  we  come  to  one 
another ;  as  we  come  to  God  the  Holy  Ghost  we  come 
to  one  another.  He  is  the  constructive  principle  and 
power  in  human  life.  By  Him  every  society  of  good 
men  is  bound  together.  By  Him  the  Christian  Church 
rises  into  the  sky  of  God's  grace  like  a  majestic  tree 
full  of  all  precious  fruit.     By  Him  the  family  wins  a 


WHITSUNDAY.  317 

new  saeredness,  and  every  friendship  of  men  who  are 
trying  to  serve  God  is  bound  into  indissoluble  union 
with  an  unseen  but  strong  compulsion.  If  you  are 
afraid  of  yourself  as  you  find  how  you  are  drawing 
away  from  your  fellow-men  and  growing  into  a  more 
and  more  selfish  life,  you  must  come  to  God ;  you  must 
enter  into  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  If  you 
have  a  quaiTel  which  you  hate  and  know  is  miserable, 
but  which  holds  you  fast,  your  only  freedom  from  it  is 
in  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Come  there  and 
your  quaiTel  will  break  and  scatter  as  the  ice  melts 
when  you  bring  it  into  the  sun.  If  you  are  conscious 
of  narrowness  and  of  inabihty  to  sympathize  with  men 
whose  forms  of  life  or  faith  are  other  than  your  own, 
still  it  is  in  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost  that  you 
must  find  the  broader  spirit.  It  is  the  communion  of 
a  common  forgiveness  and  a  common  inspiration.  As 
in  an  old  village  men  and  women  gather  from  their 
several  houses  to  drink  of  one  common  fountain  and 
meet  one  another  there,  so  they  who  need  the  help  and 
pardon  and  comfort  of  God,  coming  to  get  them  from 
the  everlasting  Comforter,  meet  one  another  in  Him. 

May  we  so  meet  in  Him  this  morning,  and  the  bless- 
ing which  has  rested  upon  so  many  generations  rest 
once  more  on  us,  making  oui'  communion  a  true  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


XXI. 

TRINITY  SUNDAY. 

"  Again,  He  sent  other  servants  more  than  the  first.  .  .  .  But 
last  of  all  He  sent  unto  them  His  Son."— Matt.  xxi.  36,  37. 

This  is  Trinity  Sunday,  and  Trinity  Sunday  is  in 
some  sense  the  day  of  faith.  It  is  the  day  of  the  soul's 
aspiration  and  ambitious  desire  to  know  all  that  it  can 
know  about  God.  There  are  two  questions  which  it  is 
possible  for  the  believing  man  to  ask  about  his  faith. 
The  first  of  them  is  not  ambitious.  It  is  overcome  by 
the  presence  of  difficulty  and  doubt  and  disagreement. 
It  tries  to  reduce  Christianity  to  the  lowest  and  sim- 
plest terms.  It  asks,  "  How  little  may  a  man  believe 
and  yet  rightly  call  himself  a  Christian?"  There  is 
a  time  for  such  a  question.  "When  the  soul,  puzzled 
about  many  of  the  details  of  its  belief,  still  longs  to 
keep  hold  of  the  sacred  name,  or  when,  aware  that 
souls  may  doubt  and  differ  much  on  special  points  and 
yet  be  one  in  spirit,  we  desire  to  feel  ourselves  in  fel- 
lowship with  just  as  many  devout  and  earnest  hearts 
as  possible — at  such  times  as  these  this  question  comes 
rightly  enough :  "  How  little  may  a  man  believe  and 
yet  be  truly  called  a  Christian?"  It  is  the  invaUd's 
question :  "  How  low  can  I  let  the  fii*e  of  life  burn 
down  and  yet  not  totally  go  out  ? "    The  other  question 

318 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  319 

strikes  another  note :  "  How  much  does  my  Christian 
faith  give  me  a  right  to  beheve  and  know  concerning 
God?"  Do  you  not  feel  the  difference  immediately? 
That  is  an  aspiring  and  ambitious  question.  It  is  a 
question  full  of  force  and  hope.  It  is  a  question  that 
opens  a  future.  It  is  the  question,  not  of  the  invalid 
upon  his  bed,  but  of  the  strong  man  with  his  armor  on. 
However  the  first  question  may  claim  certain  conditions 
for  its  own ;  however  it  may  properly  recur  on  some 
dull  days,  perhaps  in  some  long,  dull  periods,  of  Chris- 
tian life,  evidently  the  true  question  for  our  faith  to 
ask  is,  not  that,  but  this  other.  Only  in  the  struggle 
and  desire  to  know  all  that  we  can  know  of  God  must 
lie  the  hope  and  satisfaction  of  mankind. 

I  have  wanted  to  begin  my  sermon  of  to-day  with 
such  a  plea  as  this  for  the  ambitiousness  of  faith. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  danger  of  our  forgetting  that 
to  believe  much,  and  not  to  believe  little,  is  the  privilege 
and  glory  of  a  full-grown  man.  There  ^vill  come  times 
— and  upon  such  a  time  our  lot  has  fallen — when  men 
are  led  to  sing  the  praise  and  glorify  the  influence  of 
doubt.  Assuredly  it  has  its  blessings,  but  while  we 
magnify  them  we  ought  never  to  forget  that  they  are 
always  of  the  nature  of  compensation.  The  blessings 
of  doubt  are  like  the  blessings  of  poverty,  not  to  be 
chosen  for  themselves,  but  to  be  accepted  thankfully 
when  they  come  in  to  mitigate  the  unnaturalness  of 
the  condition  into  which  a  life,  missing  of  its  true  pur- 
pose and  success,  has  fallen.  There  do  come  times 
when  you  must  cut  a  tree  down  to  its  veiy  roots  in 
order  that  it  may  grow  up  the  richer  by  and  by ;  but  a 
whole  field  of  stumps  is  not  the  ideal  landscape.     The 


320  TRINITY   SUNDAY. 

forest,  with  its  wealtli  of  glorious  foliage,  is  the  trut 
coronation  of  the  earth.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  dan- 
ger lest  the  tendency  to  dwell  upon  the  blessings  and 
culture  of  doubt  may  come  to  make  a  full  and  rich 
faith  seem  to  be  almost  a  bui'den  instead  of  a  treasure ; 
a  thing  for  a  man  to  be  pitied  for,  and  not  to  be  con- 
gratulated upon.  It  is,  I  think,  no  very  unusual  tiling 
for  men  who  believe  little  to  look  at  one  who  lives  in 
the  richness  of  a  large,  full  faith  with  something  almost 
like  commiseration,  somewhat  as  there  is  a  tendency 
in  settled  invalidism  to  count  exuberant  health  a  some- 
what gross  and  vulgar  thing ;  and  their  feeling  is  very 
apt  to  communicate  itself  to  the  believing  man  himself, 
and  make  him  half  ashamed  and  mistrustful  of  his 
own  belief. 

Against  such  a  tendency  we  want  to  warn  one  an- 
other and  to  warn  ourselves.  Seek  faith — as  full  and 
rich  a  faith  as  you  can  find.  Try  to  know  all  you  can 
about  God  and  your  own  soul.  Count  every  new  con- 
viction which  is  really  won  a  treasure  and  enrichment 
of  your  life.  There  are  dangers  in  accumulation  of 
every  sort — danger  lest  the  thing  accumulated  should 
lose  some  of  its  value  as  it  becomes  more  plentiful ; 
danger  lest  the  sense  of  possession  should  lose  for  us 
some  of  the  discipline  that  can  only  come  in  search — 
but  these  dangers  are  nothing  to  the  danger  of  the 
despair  of  faith,  the  terrible  danger  of  coming  to  think 
that  God  is  darkness  and  not  Hght,  the  terrible  danger 
of  ceasing  to  hear  His  perpetual  invitation  to  His  chil- 
di'cn  to  come  on  and  in,  into  ever  more  trustful  and  cer- 
tain knowledge  of  His  purposes,  of  His  love,  and  of 
Himself. 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  321 

If  all  that  I  have  said  be  true,  then  there  can  be  no 
loftier  study  with  regard  to  man  than  the  attempt  to 
trace  his  progress  into  richer  and  richer  faith ;  to  see 
how  humanity  becomes  the  recipient  of  revelation  after 
revelation  of  God,  until  it  stands  in  the  full  light  of 
the  New  Testament,  Upon  this  Trinity  Sunday,  when 
we  especially  recall  the  great  statement  of  truth  in 
which  our  faith  culminates,  I  want  to  make  that  at- 
tempt. Let  us  try  to  trace  in  briefest  outline  the 
growth  of  faith,  and  see  how  branch  adds  itself  to 
branch  until  at  last  there  is  the  glory  of  the  perfect 
tree. 

1.  Faith  begins  when  a  man  becomes  aware  of  his  own 
soul.  We  must  go  back  as  far  as  that.  We  picture 
to  ourselves  (although  no  man  has  probably  identified 
it  in  his  own  experience,  and  no  historian  has  ever  put 
his  finger  on  it  in  the  record  of  the  world) — we  picture 
to  ourselves  a  deep  and  solemn  moment  when  man, 
having  known  himself  thus  far  solely  in  his  most  ex- 
ternal nature,  as  a  being  of  the  senses  and  of  the  flesh, 
becomes  aware  of  the  mysterious  spiritual  life  which 
lives  within.  He  comes  to  know  of  keener  pains  and 
more  exquisite  pleasures,  of  duties  and  responsibilities 
and  hopes  and  fears  which  are  not  of  the  body,  but  of 
a  truer  self  which  lives  within  the  body,  and  which, 
when  he  has  once  found  it,  becomes  to  him  his  only 
real,  trvie  self — the  he  who  reaUy  lives  his  life  and 
owns  the  only  essential  and  intrinsic  character  which 
he  possesses.  That  is  the  beginning  of  all  faith.  In 
that  faith  in  his  own  soul  man  for  the  fii-st  time  be- 
comes capable  of  belief  in  unseen  spmtual  existence 
anywhere.     Unless  he  had  that  primary  knowledge  of 


322  TRINITY  SUNDAY. 

spirit  in  himself,  all  evidence  of  spiritual  being  would 
come  to  him  and  pass  away  from  him  as  uselessly  as 
the  south  wind  blows  across  a  stone.  That  first  faith 
comes  by  self -consciousness.  A  thousand  voices  come 
to  whisper  assurance  to  it  when  it  has  once  begun  to 
know  itself,  but  its  birth  is  out  of  the  bosom  of  the 
human  self -consciousness.  A  man  knows  his  own  soul, 
knows  that  he  carries  a  spiiitual  life,  and  in  that 
knowledge  faith  begins. 

2.  But  faith,  once  born  thus  in  the  consciousness  of 
spirituality,  cannot  lie  unobservant  in  its  cradle.  It 
lifts  itself  up  and  looks  abroad  upon  the  world.  Just 
as  the  child,  grown  conscious  of  its  own  intelligence, 
searches  in  all  things  for  an  intelligence  correspondent 
to  his  own,  and  finds  it  in  the  parental  providence 
which  protects  and  rules  his  life,  so  man,  beheving  in 
his  own  soul,  searches  the  world  in  all  its  higher  regions 
for  the  evidence  of  soul,  of  spiritual  nature,  con'espon- 
dent  to  his  own — the  evidence  of  thought  and  will  and 
love — and  finding  them  abundantly,  attains  the  faith 
in  God.  Next  to  the  faith  in  soul  there  comes  faith 
in  the  Father-soul  or  God.  That  faith  precedes  all 
Bibles,  all  recorded  utterances  of  God.  Man  does  not 
learn  from  any  book  the  first  truth  of  the  existence  of 
Divinity.  The  utterances  of  the  Books  of  God,  when 
they  come,  confii-m  the  faith  and  make  it  large  and 
rich,  just  as,  when  he  whom  we  have  known  of  with  a 
perfect  certainty  for  years  comes  into  om*  presence  at 
last  and  speaks  to  us,  the  perfect  assurance  which  we 
have  had  of  his  existence  grows  yet  more  sure.  So, 
when  God  speaks  in  revelation,  we  do  not  merely  know 
what  He  wills,  we  know  with  a  new  kind  of  certainty 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  323 

that  He  is;  but  the  first  certainty  came  before  He 
spoke,  except  in  that  speech  which  is  inarticulate,  un- 
recognized, but  real,  the  speech  of  nature  to  nature,  of 
the  highest  and  original  nature  of  any  sort  to  the  lower 
and  derived  natures  of  the  same  sort,  the  speech  of  the 
fountain  to  the  stream,  the  speech  of  the  father  to  the 
child.  In  that  speech  comes  the  faith  of  Grod  into  the 
soul  of  man,  and  man  beUeves  in  God. 

3.  This,  then,  is  the  genesis  of  faith.  Man  has  be- 
lieved in  his  own  soul  and  he  has  believed  in  God. 
But  this  is  only  the  genesis,  only  the  birth  and  the 
beginning.  So  far  all  is  solitary.  Each  man  has 
known  nothing  yet  of  God  but  what  his  own  personal 
consciousness  and  experience  can  tell  him.  How  nat- 
ural the  next  step  is !  Here  are  these  hosts  of  men 
around  him.  Here  are  these  generations  of  men 
stretching  back  behind  him.  They  too  had  souls. 
Each  in  his  own  indi\iduality,  and  then  together  in  the 
groups  in  which  they  have  lived,  they  have  had  spu-it- 
ual  natures  and  spiritual  interests  in  which  they  too 
have  been  related  to  God  and  have  drawn  forth  the 
utterances  of  His  spii'ituality.  As  soon  as  we  see  this, 
then,  all  the  spiritual  history  of  man  becomes  the  sub- 
ject of  om'  study.  That  God  whose  life  and  ways  we 
have  found  reflected  in  our  own  experiences — which  ex- 
periences, when  we  have  once  come  to  know  Him,  we 
begin  to  call  His  treatment  of  us — behold  all  the  ages, 
aU  the  nations,  in  proportion  to  the  seriousness  of  their 
life  and  the  momentousness  of  their  purposes,  become 
mirrors  of  Him,  telling  us  things  concerning  Him 
which  the  range  and  depth  of  our  own  personal  life 
was  too  limited  to  show.    All  human  history  is  a  store- 


324  TRmiTY   SUNDAY. 

house  for  our  faith.     Out  of  it  all  comes  knowledge 
about  God. 

4.  And  then  in  the  midst  of  that  history  of  all  the 
peoples,  each  showing  us  something  of  God,  there 
shines  out  one  peculiar  history,  the  history  of  a  pecu- 
liar people.  With  greater  issues,  with  profounder  life, 
the  story  of  the  Jews  stands  out,  not,  as  it  sometimes 
seems  to  be  described,  as  if  God  had  used  their  national 
life  as  a  mere  set  of  ingenious  pictures  to  tell  men 
things  which  were  not  real  in  their  day,  which  were 
not  to  be  real  for  years  and  years  to  come.  Not  so ! 
The  history  of  the  Jews  gets  its  perpetual  interest  from 
the  fact  that,  being  the  most  conscientious  and  spirit- 
ual of  all  peoples,  the  Jews  had  deeper  things  to  do 
with  God  than  other  races,  and  so  God  showed  things 
concerning  Himself  in  His  relationship  with  them  that 
He  did  not  show — that  He  could  not  show — when  He 
was  dealing  with  the  Roman  or  the  Greek.  There  is 
the  first  and  deepest  value  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
tells  their  history ;  there  is  the  fundamental  fact  which 
makes  the  belief  in  that  Old  Testament  a  real  addition 
to  and  growth  in  faith. 

5.  But  the  Old  Testament  is  something  more  than 
the  history  of  a  religious  people  and  of  God's  relation- 
ship to  them.  Whoever  reads  it  carefully  finds  a  new 
idea  coming  in — the  idea  of  direct  communication  from 
God  to  man.  Through  chosen  men  there  are  perpetu- 
ally arriving  messages  from  God,  teUing  His  people 
directly  and  distinctly  what  is  true  and  what  they 
ought  to  do.  Abraham,  Moses,  David,  Isaiah — all  the 
way  down  to  Malachi  the  long  line  of  the  prophets 
runs,  God  speaking  to  each  of  them,  and  through  them 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  325 

speaking  to  His  listening  people,  I  will  not  pause  to 
say  how  naturally  the  expectation  of  some  such  power 
of  communication  from  God  to  man  follows  upon  the 
faith  in  God's  existence;  how  almost  impossible  it 
seems  to  be  for  men  to  keep  anj'^  faith  in  a  wholly  silent 
and  uncommunicative  God.  I  am  not  trying  now  to 
prove  the  faith,  but  only  to  show  you  how  stage  by 
stage  it  grows  to  its  completeness.  All  that  I  want 
you  to  notice,  then,  about  the  prophets  is  what  a  great 
new  life  comes  into  man's  belief  when  their  voices 
really  break  upon  his  ears.  Man  has  believed  in  his 
own  soul.  He  has  believed  in  God.  He  has  believed 
in  a  government  of  God,  and  learned  something  of 
what  God  is  by  seeing  how  His  government  proceeds. 
But  everything  so  far  has  gone  on  in  awful  silence. 
Now  God  speaks !  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  declares 
His  prophet.  Is  it  not  almost  as  if  the  tree  had  grown 
to  its  full  statui-e  without  foliage,  all  its  branches  per- 
fect, but  all  bare,  and  now  at  last  they  all  broke  forth 
into  leafage  in  one  glorious  moment  ?  It  is  not  simply 
what  the  prophets  say.  Certainly  it  is  not  the  glimpses 
of  yet  unborn  history  which  they  sometimes  give  us — 
what  in  the  narrower  and  stricter  sense  we  often  call 
prophecy.  It  is  that  in  them  God  has  spoken — spoken 
with  such  a  voice  that  the  conscience  and  the  heart  of 
man  can  hear. 

6.  If  this  were  all  it  would  be  very  much  indeed  •, 
but  there  is  something  else.  At  last  I  come  now  to 
the  text,  which  I  have  not  yet  mentioned.  In  the 
chapter  of  Matthew  from  which  it  is  taken  Some  One  is 
telling  this  same  story  wliich  I  have  tried  to  teU — the 
story  of  the  gradually  ripening  provision  for  the  faith 


326  TRINITY  SUNDAY. 

of  man.  And  He  has  reached  this  point.  He  has  just 
recounted  the  story  of  the  Hebrew  prophets.  A  Master 
has  sent  His  servants  to  the  workmen  in  His  vineyard 
to  secm*e  their  loyalty  and  service.  The  mission  has 
not  done  its  work :  "  The  husbandmen  took  His  servants, 
and  beat  one,  and  killed  another,  and  stoned  another. 
Again,  He  sent  other  servants  more  than  the  iS^rst :  and 
they  did  unto  them  likewise."  There  is  just  the  point 
that  we  have  reached — the  mission  of  the  prophets. 
And  then  the  Speaker  goes  on  and  declares  another 
new  act  of  the  Master  of  the  vineyard :  "  Last  of  aU 
He  sent  unto  them  His  Son."  Just  see  what  we  have 
here.  Jesus  is  talking  about  Himself.  He  is  telling 
about  His  own  coming  into  the  world.  He  is  declar- 
ing what  came  before  Him  and  compelled  His  coming. 
And  He  declares  that  with  His  coming  there  was  a  dis- 
tinct change,  a  clear  step  forward  from  one  method  of 
the  revelation  of  God  to  man  to  another  method  of  the 
revelation  of  God  to  man.  That  seems  so  clear.  God 
sent  them  servant  after  servant,  but  by  and  by  He 
stopped  the  stream  of  servants  and  sent  unto  them 
His  Son.  Fix  your  mind  clearly  and  simply  on  these 
words.  Can  they  mean  anything  else  than  this:  that 
there  was  a  distinctly  new  method  of  communication, 
a  distinctively  new  kind  of  revelation,  when  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  came,  which  had  not  been  in  the 
coming  of  Isaiah  or  of  Moses  ?  They  were  servants. 
This  was  a  new  being  with  a  new  name.  This  is  the 
Son. 

Nor  is  it  hard  to  discover,  with  these  two  names  be- 
fore us,  what  was  the  nature  of  the  change  which  the 
coming  of  Jesus  brought  about.     If  you  can  picture  to 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  327 

yourself  a  father  who  has  sent  message  after  message 
to  his  wilful  boy,  assiu'iug  him  of  love,  and  begg^xig, 
tempting,  commanding  his  obedience ;  if  you  can  thini. 
of  him  at  last,  when  all  of  them  have  failed,  gathering 
up  aU  the  affection  and  majesty  of  his  fatherhood  and 
going  himself,  that  with  the  look  of  his  own  eye  and 
the  outreach  of  his  own  hand  he  might  bear  living  wit- 
ness of  that  which  no  messenger  could  tell,  then  you 
can  feel  the  difference  which  Jesus  means  to  describe. 
If  you  can  pictm*e  a  king  whose  armies  are  insulted 
and  despised  going  himself  and  putting  his  own  life 
trustfully  into  the  power  of  his  rebellious  subjects,  that 
he  might  show  them  all  his  heart,  again  you  see  the 
difference.  It  is  the  everlasting  difference  between 
selfhood  and  its  power,  as  distinguished  from  the  clos- 
est and  most  intimate  of  messengers.  A  being's 
knowledge  or  authority  that  being  may  impart  to  a 
servant,  and  that  servant  may  communicate.  But  a 
being's  self  can  be  handed  over  to  no  hired  stranger, 
however  loyal  and  obedient  and  devoted  he  may  be. 
There  is  a  mystery  and  depth  of  power  in  a  man's  self 
which  is  all  his  own.  Now  try  to  state  to  yourself 
what  was  the  distinction  that  Jesus  drew  between  Him- 
self and  the  prophets  who  had  come  before  Him,  and 
5'ou  will  find,  I  am  sure,  that  it  lies  just  here.  They 
brought  God's  messages ;  He  brought  God's  self.  They 
revealed  God's  plans;  He  opened  God's  heart.  They 
told  men  what  God  wanted  ;  He  showed  men  what  God 
wab.  That  inner  incommunicable  soul  of  selfhood 
which  none  can  manifest  but  he  whose  it  is — nay,  none 
save  he  who  is  it — that  was  what  Jesus  came  to  show 
men  concerning  God,  and  it  was  His  power  and  pre- 


328  TRINITY  SUNDAY. 

rogative  to  show  that  which  He  declared  when  He 
said  that  He  was  different  from  all  that  had  come  be- 
fore Him ;  that  while  they  were  the  servants  He  was 
the  Son  of  God. 

If  we  beheve  what  Jesus  said  about  Himself,  my 
friends,  and  earnestly  desire  to  receive  Him  and  to 
treat  Him  according  to  the  nature  which  He  declared 
and  claimed  for  Himself,  does  it  not  seem  very  clear 
that  it  is  as  the  Son  of  God,  not  as  the  servant  of  God, 
that  He  must  be  received  ?  Not  as  another  Moses  with 
a  purer  law,  not  as  a  new  Isaiah  with  a  loftier  inspira- 
tion, but  as  one  who  in  a  different  way  brings  us  the 
very  life  and  heart  and  nature  of  God  Himself ;  there- 
fore not  only  with  intelligent  docility,  but  with  adoring 
love,  with  loving  adoration — so  He  is  to  be  received. 

This  is  the  real  truth  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Its  value  to  us,  its  whole  relationship  to  us,  indeed,  re- 
sides in  this :  that  it  involves  in  Him  a  power  to  bring 
the  very  being  of  God  close  to  our  being,  in  a  way 
purely  His  own.  If  the  New  Testament,  if  Christ's 
own  words,  are  full  of  the  joyous  and  confident  asser- 
tion of  that  power,  then  they  are  full  of  the  assertion 
of  His  divinity.  That  is  the  way  in  which  you  ought 
to  question  your  New  Testament  to  see  whether  it  de- 
clares the  divinity  of  Jesus :  not  by  the  hunting  out 
of  proof -texts  and  single  words  of  Christ,  but  by  the 
broad  survey  of  His  whole  mission  as  He  Himself  con- 
ceived of  it,  and  then  the  serious  asking  of  yourself  this 
question  :  Did  He  or  did  He  not  think  of  His  mission 
as  intrinsically  different — different  in  kind — from  the 
missions  of  all  the  great  teachers  of  the  race  ?  And,  if 
so,  where  was  the  difference  ?    Could  it  have  lain  any- 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  329 

where  else  tnan  in  the  fact  that  He  manifested  not 
simply  God's  truth,  but  God ;  that  He  made  the  life, 
the  heart,  the  love  of  God  to  be  present  among  men, 
in  their  affections  and  tlieii*  homes?  And  if  He  had 
wanted  to  state  just  this  difference  in  the  clearest 
words,  could  He  have  put  it  more  clearly  than  this: 
"  God  sent  to  the  world  servant  after  servant,  etc."  ? 

I  see  that  certain  teachers,  with  a  partizan  alacrity, 
have  said  that  the  New  Version  of  the  New  Testament 
has  established  Unitarianism  and  abandoned  the  divin- 
ity of  Jesus  because  it  has  changed  the  English  of  several 
verses,  and  notably  because  it  has  left  out  one  text 
which  every  scholar  of  the  least  information  has  known 
for  years  was  not  originally  part  of  the  book  in  wliich 
it  stood.  The  truth  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  of  the 
distinct  difference  between  Him  and  every  other  sav- 
ior, of  the  supreme  manifestation  of  the  life  of  God  in 
Him,  does  not  hang  on  a  few  verses.  If  it  did  it  would 
be  weak  indeed.  If  it  did  we  may  almost  say  that  it 
would  not  be  worth  questioning  those  verses  for.  No ; 
that  truth  shines  through  all  Christ's  thought  about 
Himself.  It  breaks  forth  in  every  description  of  the 
work  He  has  to  do.  It  bums  as  the  soul  of  His  enthu- 
siasm. It  makes  the  deep  solemnity  and  the  awful  joy 
that  fill  His  Ufe.  He  gathers  it  around  Him,  with  the 
most  touching  reverence  for  the  mystery  of  His  own 
nature,  whenever  He  calls  Himself  the  Son  of  God  and 
takes  up  with  hands  conscious  of  a  new  kind  of  power 
the  work  which  the  servants  of  God  had  failed  to  do. 

And  now  suppose  that  this  divinity  of  Jesus  becomes 
part  of  a  man's  faith.  Think  what  that  means.  Sup- 
pose that  in  addition  to  all  that  a  man  has  believed 


330  TRINITY  SUNDAY. 

before — in  addition  to  believing  that  he  has  a  soul,  and 
that  there  is  a  God,  and  that  God  rules  in  love,  and 
that  God  has  spoken  in  the  messages  of  the  prophets — 
suppose  a  man  really  believes  that,  entering  into  our 
human  life,  God  has  been  here  upon  the  earth.  What 
shall  we  say  of  that  belief ;  what  will  it  be  to  him  who 
holds  it  ?  Will  it  be  some  great  burden  which  he  will 
carry  about  gi'oaning  and  wishing  that  he  could  get  rid 
of,  haunted  by  it  perpetually,  looking  back  with  long- 
ing to  the  sweet  and  simple  days  when  no  such  awful 
intrusion  of  Divinity  had  broken  the  snug  compactness 
of  his  human  life?  The  question  answers  itself.  If 
to  believe  in  God  is  a  glory  and  delight,  the  nearer  the 
God  whom  I  believe  in  comes  to  me,  the  more  glorious 
and  delightful  grows  my  life.  To  tread  an  earth  which 
He  has  trodden,  to  think  thoughts  and  to  feel  emotions 
which,  just  as  I  think  and  feel  them,  in  their  human 
shapes,  He  the  eternal  God  has  thought  and  felt — this 
is  assuredly  a  marvelous  enrichment  of  my  living.  I 
have  gone  out  and  up  into  a  new  world  with  this  new 
faith — a  new  world,  yet  the  old  world  still ;  the  old 
world  teeming  and  bursting  with  new  meanings,  radi- 
ant with  new  light,  sacred  and  beautiful  all  through 
with  the  remembered  presence  of  the  Son  of  God. 
Surely  no  man  who  has  once  known  what  it  is  to  hve 
in  that  world  can  ever  turn  his  back  upon  its  richness. 
7.  Shall  we  go  on?  Is  there  yet  something  further 
before  the  possibilities  of  human  faith  shall  be  fulfilled  ? 
Indeed  there  is.  AU  this  revelation  which  has  come  to 
us  has  been  revelation  about  God.  We  have  gone  on 
and  up  until  we  have  come  to  believe  in  Christ.  He  is 
the  Son  of  God ;  in  a  supreme,  peculiar  way  making 


TRINITY  SUNDAY.  331 

God's  nature  known  where  every  other  revealer  has 
only  been  God's  servant,  bringing  men  His  messages. 
But  evidently  the  revelation  cannot  stop  there.  If 
Christ  does  indeed  show  God  to  man,  then  He  must 
also  show  man  to  himself.  The  sunbeam  reveals  to 
the  flower  not  merely  the  sun,  but  the  flower;  and  so 
he  who  sees'God  in  Christ  sees  also  himself,  and  learns 
his  own  capacit}'  as  he  receives  the  God  whom  Christ 
makes  known  to  him. 

Little  would  be  any  faith  which  did  not  culminate 
and  round  itself  with  faith  in  our  own  spiritual  capa- 
bilities. To  lie  like  a  stone  and  see  the  stars  sweep 
over  us  across  the  sky,  and  have  no  movement,  no  re- 
sponse in  our  own  hearts — there  is  no  blessing  in  that. 
But  to  find  that  when  Christ  shows  us  God  om*  natures 
recognize  the  Divinity  with  love,  and  strive  to  repeat  in 
themselves  the  image  that  the  Son  of  God  has  shown 
to  us — that  opens  infinite  joy  and  hope. 

Is  there  any  recognition  of  all  that  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament? Certainly  there  is.  When  Jesus  comes  and 
says,  "  I  am  the  Son  of  God,  distinct  and  separate,  so 
holding  that  name  solely  by  Myself  that  all  His  other 
messengers  are  servants  and  not  sons ;  and  yet  you  to 
whom  I  bring  Him  in  your  native  power  of  response  to 
Him  are  all  His  children,  and  I  can  bring  Him  to  you 
only  in  virtue  of  this  essential  belonging  to  Him  which 
is  in  you  as  His  children  " — when  Jesus  says  that,  He 
is  declaring  just  this  completeness  of  His  work  which 
I  have  been  describing. 

And  Jesus  does  say  that.  He  calls  Himself  the  Son 
of  God  and  He  calls  us  God's  sons.  There  is  no  con- 
fusion.    His  Sonship  stands  above  our  sonship  always. 


332  TRINITY  SUNDAY. 

Not  one  of  us  may  say,  as  He  says,  "  He  that  hath  seen 
Me  hath  seen  the  Father."  And  yet  all  of  us,  because 
we  are  able  to  see  the  Father  in  Him,  know  ourselves 
truly  sharers  of  His  Sonship. 

Not  many  years  after  Christ  had  ascended  into 
heaven,  the  greatest  master  and  scholar  of  His  truth, 
the  man  who  above  all  others  had  fathomed  its  mean- 
ing and  wrought  it  out  in  his  experience — the  great 
St.  Paul — declared  this  final  fact  about  what  Christ 
had  done.  ''Because  we  are  sons,"  he  wrote,  "Grod 
hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  into  our  hearts, 
whereby  we  cry,  Father."  The  manifestation  of  Grod 
in  Christ  completes  itself  by  the  manifestation  of  God 
in  us.  The  dispensation  of  the  Son  who  descends  from 
above  is  fulfilled  in  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit  who 
occupies  our  souls  and  gives  us  perpetual  divine  hght 
and  help,  and  makes  our  life  part  of  the  life  of  God. 

Again  I  say  all  previous  faith  would  be  but  worth- 
less to  us,  however  sure  and  certain  it  might  be,  if  it 
did  not  come  up  at  last  and  complete  itself  in  this.  To 
beheve  in  the  sun  and  not  in  the  eye ;  to  believe  in  the 
sweetness  of  the  honey  and  not  in  the  power  of  taste ; 
to  believe  in  the  God  over  us  and  around  us  and  not 
in  the  God  within  us — that  would  be  a  powerless  and 
fi'uitless  faith.  But  to  beheve  in  God  the  Son  and  God 
the  Spirit  too,  in  the  divine  capacity  witliin  us  answer- 
ing back  to  the  divine  offer  around  us ;  to  believe  in 
ourselves  through  the  divine  presence  which  we  are 
capable  of  receiving  and  containing — that  completes 
the  faith  of  man.  He  may  unfold  that  faith  more  and 
more,  he  may  fathom  it  deeper  and  deeper  and  bring 
up  richer  and  richer  treasures,  but  he  can  add  nothing 


TRINITY   SUNDAY.  333 

to  it.  He  has  sailed  around  the  globe  of  possible  be- 
lief. He  has  attained  the  complete  faith  by  which  a 
man  is  saved. 

And  now  in  one  last  moment  let  us  look  back  and 
repeat  to  ourselves  what  is  contained  in  this  completed 
faith  of  the  full  Christian  man.  Let  us  see  how  branch 
after  branch  has  added  itself  to  this  growing  tree  of 
faith  before  our  eyes,  until  at  last  the  tree  is  perfect. 
First  man  believes  in  his  own  soul ;  he  knows  that  he 
is  spiritual.  Then  he  believes  in  God ;  he  knows  that 
his  spirit  is  but  an  echo  of  the  central  and  eternal 
Spirit  which  is  over  all.  Then  He  believes  that  God 
rules  the  world ;  all  history  becomes  His  work,  and  one 
especial  history  stands  forth — the  history  of  a  sacred 
people — in  which  God's  hand  is  most  peculiarly  mani- 
fest. Then  he  believes  that  God  has  spoken  to  man- 
kind ;  the  voices  of  the  prophets  bring  messages  from 
Him.  Then,  doing  what  those  prophets  failed  to  do, 
behold,  there  stands  forth  One  who  bears  God's  nature 
and  is  God's  Son.  And  in  the  presence  of  that  life  of 
Christ  the  man's  own  life  opens  its  possibilities  and  be- 
comes filled  with  an  ever-present  power  of  Divinity, 
with  the  helping,  inspii'ing,  comforting  Spirit  of  God. 
As  if  one  stood  and  saw  the  meager  stalk  enlarge  and 
open  its  spreading  branches  and  clothe  itself  with  leaves 
and  at  last  complete  itself  in  the  glors^  of  its  golden 
fruit,  so  grows  this  full  rich  faith  before  our  eyes.  It 
is  the  faith  in  God  and  the  faith  in  man,  in  the  fullness 
of  God's  strength  making  the  completeness  of  man's 
possibihty.  We  call  it  the  faith  of  the  Trinity ;  but  I 
have  wholly  failed  in  what  I  have  tried  to  do  to- 


334  TRINITY   SUNDAY. 

day  unless  I  have  made  you  see  that  this  great  faith 
is  no  one  single  dogma  which  men  may  prove  or  dis- 
prove by  an  ingenious  argument,  but  is  a  great  con- 
ception of  the  universe,  and  of  the  Power  which  rules 
it,  and  of  the  place  of  man  within  it,  into  which  a  man 
can  only  enter  by  the  experience  of  life.  It  is  the 
story  of  the  life  of  God  and  the  life  of  man  in  fuUest 
and  openest  relation  to  each  other. 

About  tliis  faith,  the  faith  of  aU  the  Christian  cen- 
turies, the  faith  to  which  our  Church  is  consecrated, 
the  faith  to  which  this  day  belongs,  let  me  say  one  or 
two  things  before  I  close. 

First,  it  cannot  be  a  matter  of  indifference  and  un- 
concern to  any  living  man  whether  that  faith  be  true 
or  not.  Say  that  you  beheve  it,  say  that  you  disbelieve 
it — both  of  these  declarations  are  intelligible;  but  to 
say  that  it  is  a  thing  of  no  consequence,  to  say  that 
you  do  not  care  whether  it  is  tiTie  or  not — that  proves 
either  that  you  do  not  know  what  it  really  means,  or 
that  you  are  wantonly  careless  about  the  things  which 
above  all  others  deserve  the  thought  and  care  of  every 
intelligent  and  earnest  man. 

And  second,  to  come  back  to  where  this  sermon 
started,  if  a  man  does  believe  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity, he  ought  to  rejoice  and  glory  in  his  faith  as  the 
enrichment  of  his  life.  Not  as  a  burden  on  his  back, 
but  as  wings  on  his  shoulders,  he  ought  to  carry  his 
belief.  To  cease  to  believe  it  would  be,  not  welcome 
liberty,  but  incalculable  loss.  For  a  new  soul  to  come 
to  believe  it  is  not,  as  men  have  often  foolishly  talked, 
the  putting  out  into  a  sea  all  dark  with  mists  and  fogs. 
Xt  is  the  entrance  into  a  luxuriant  land  where  all  life 


TRmiTY  SUNDAY.  335 

lives  at  its  fullest,  where  nature  opens  her  most  lavish 
bounty,  and  where  man  has  the  consummate  opportu- 
nity to  be  and  do  his  best. 

I  rejoice  with  you  to  whom  that  faith  is  real.  Mea- 
sure this  great  tree  in  your  own  life  and  see  how  large 
it  has  grown  there.  How  much  of  this  complete  faith 
of  God  and  man  do  you  believe?  That  means,  How 
fully  are  you  hving?  Not  how  many  doctrines  do  you 
hold,  but  how  much  of  the  life  of  God  have  you  taken 
in  to  be  your  life  ?  May  we  to-day  rejoice  anew  in  all 
the  faith  which  God  has  given  us ;  and  may  He  help  us 
by  obedient  lives  to  make  what  He  has  already  given 
us  ever  more  and  more  deeply  ours,  that  so  it  may  be 
possible  for  Him  to  give  us  richer  and  richer  faith  for- 
ever. 


XXII. 

THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF   CHRIST. 

"  And  Peter  answered  and  said  to  Jesus,  Master,  it  is  good  for 
us  to  be  here  :  and  let  us  make  three  tabernacles ;  one  for  Thee, 
and  one  for  Moses,  and  one  for  Elias.  For  he  wist  not  what  to 
say." — Mark  ix.  5,  6. 

In  that  book  which  is  known  as  the  Second  Epistle 
of  St.  Peter,  the  apostle,  now  gi*own  into  old  age,  is 
heard  recalling  the  event  of  which  the  story  is  told  in 
this  chapter  of  St.  Mark.  "  And  this  voice  which  came 
from  heaven,"  he  says,  ''  we  heard  when  we  were  with 
Him  in  the  holy  mount."  He  is  remembering  the 
Transfiguration.  Through  all  the  busy  and  burdened 
years  which  have  come  in  between,  Peter  has  never 
ceased  to  hear  that  voice  which  on  the  mountain  had 
declared  Jesus  to  be  "  the  beloved  Son  of  God."  As 
he  looked  back  to  the  whole  scene  he  must  have  been 
thankful  that  his  impulsive  suggestion,  spoken  in  the 
confusion,  when  "  he  wist  not  what  to  say,"  had  not 
been  accepted  by  his  Lord.  The  event  which  he  re- 
membered had  been  so  much  more  to  him  than  if  its 
outward  form  had  been  made  perpetual.  It  had  passed 
into  that  glorified  world  of  memory,  where  its  spiritual 
meaning  and  radiance  had  shone  out  from  it.  It  had 
become  sacred  forever  with  the  manifestation  of  its 
spiritual  truth. 

336 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF   CHRIST.  337 

This  is  the  best  thing  which  can  happen  to  the  events 
of  life :  that  they  should  pass  into  the  region  of  exalted 
memory,  where  their  true  light  may  shine  out  for  the 
iUmnination  of  all  the  life  which  we  have  yet  to  live. 
Less  and  less,  I  think,  do  we  desire  that  the  mere  con- 
ditions and  circumstances  of  life  should  be  maintained. 
More  and  more  do  we  dread  that  the  events  of  the  past 
should  be  lost  out  of  our  memory.  Richer  and  richer 
seems  to  be  that  illumination  in  which  they  are  set 
when  they  ai"e  spiritually  remembered  and  we  can  see 
the  fullness  of  their  meaning.  It  is  not  always  plea- 
sant to  see  still  standing  on  the  street-side  the  house  in 
which  you  lived  when  you  were  a  boy.  Other  people 
have  come  and  lived  in  it,  and  their  lives,  mixed  with 
yours,  look  out  upon  you  from  its  windows.  But  your 
boyhood  itself — that  goes  back  from  you  into  a  realm 
of  light  and  eternity,  winning  clearness  and  interpre- 
tation as  it  goes,  and  takes  its  place  there,  glorified, 
not  distorted,  revealed,  not  falsified,  pouring  out  power 
and  iUmnination  upon  aU  your  life.  As  the  great  men 
of  the  world  walk  sometimes  with  great  labor  and  dis- 
tress along  the  common  streets  of  life  and  then  pass 
off  into  a  world  of  undying  fame,  where  they  stand 
close  and  clear  forever  to  the  heart  and  the  intelligence 
of  man,  so  the  great  events  of  our  hves  have  their 
world  of  undying  influence,  whence  their  power  comes 
forth  to  touch  and  shape  the  life  which  is  made  up  of 
the  procession  of  less  illustrious  events. 

I  want  to  speak  to  you  to-day  of  the  power  of  the 
most  exalted  moments  of  our  lives.  The  Transfigm*a- 
tion  had  been  the  most  splendid  moment  in  the  life 
of  Peter.     Part  of  his  life  had  been  lived  in  the  com- 


338  THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST. 

monplace  labor  of  Ms  trade  as  fisherman.  Part  of  it 
had  been  given  to  the  loving  and  puzzled  study  of  his 
Master's  nature,  trying  to  find  out  the  secret  of  this 
wonderful  power.  One  long  stretch  of  it  had  been 
clouded  with  his  mean  and  wretched  sin.  Many  years 
of  it  had  been  given  to  the  patient,  faithful  labor  of 
his  missionary  life.  In  the  midst  of  it  aU  there  shone 
forth  one  experience  of  unmixed  and  certain  glory. 
Out  of  this  confused  and  undulating  land  stood  up  one 
mountain-top  which  never  lost  the  light.  Once  he  had 
seen  Jesus  in  apocalyptic  glory.  Once  he  had  felt  the 
very  fire  which  burns  in  the  robes  of  the  everlasting 
purity  and  power.  Once  every  doubt,  every  darkness, 
eveiy  delay,  had  disappeared,  and  he  had  been  in 
heaven  for  an  hour.  The  splendor  of  that  moment 
never  faded.  The  old  man  died  rejoicing  in  the  mem- 
ory that  it  had  once  been  liis,  and  feeling  sure  that  in 
it  was  the  promise  of  all  the  glory  to  which  he  was 
going. 

To  many,  if  not  to  all,  men's  lives  come  such  splen- 
did moments  as  came  to  Peter  on  the  mountain  of  the 
Transfiguration.  If  I  could  uncover  the  hearts  of  you 
who  are  listening  to  me  this  morning  I  think  that  I 
should  find  in  almost  aU — perhaps  in  all — of  them  a 
sacred  chamber  where  burns  the  bright  memory  of 
some  loftiest  moment,  some  supreme  experience,  which 
is  your  transfiguration  time.  Once  on  a  certain  morn- 
ing you  felt  the  gloiy  of  living,  and  the  misery  of  life 
has  never  since  that  been  able  quite  to  take  possession 
of  your  soul.  Once  you  knew  for  a  few  days  what  was 
the  delight  of  a  perfect  friendship.  Once  you  saw  for 
an  inspired  instant  the  idea  of  your  profession  blaze 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST.  339 

out  of  the  midst  of  its  dull  drudgery.  Once,  just  for 
a  glorious  moment,  you  saw  the  very  truth  and  beheved 
in  it  without  the  shadow  of  a  cloud.  Do  not  you  know 
some  of  these  experiences?  I  am  sure  you  do.  And 
often  the  question  must  have  come,  ''What  do  they 
mean  ?  What  value  may  I  give  to  these  transfiguration 
times  ?  "  So  much  depends  upon  the  answer  which  we 
give  to  that  question  that  I  may  well  ask  you  to  study 
it  with  me  awhile. 

And,  first  of  all,  the  impulse  must  be  right  which 
gives  to  these  highest  experiences  of  our  lives  a  pro- 
phetic value.  The  fii-st  instinct  is  to  feel  that  they  are 
not  complete  and  final;  that  they  point  to  something 
which  is  yet  to  come ;  that  they  are  the  premonitions, 
the  anticipations,  of  a  fuller  condition,  in  which  that 
which  they  manifested  fitfully  and  transiently  shall 
become  the  constant  and  habitual  possession  of  the 
Ufe. 

What  a  mockery  there  would  be  in  these  supreme 
ecstatic  moments  of  life  if  they  did  not  meet  with  this 
instinct  and  claim  their  interpretation  from  it !  Once 
to  have  been  brought  up  out  of  the  dungeon  and 
shown  the  sunlight  and  then  be  carried  back  again, 
and,  with  the  memory  of  it  still  in  our  eyes,  to  hear  the 
bolt  driven  and  the  key  thrown  into  the  depths,  so 
that  we  never  again  could  be  released  one  moment 
from  our  darkness — what  wretchedness  could  equal 
that !  Once  to  have  seen  for  a  moment  what  it  is  to 
believe,  and  then  to  feel  the  stone  of  unbelief  rolled 
hopelessly  to  our  tomb  door — all  the  convictions  of 
the  human  soul  stand  up  against  a  cruel  mockery  like 
that !     It  cannot  be ! 


340  THE  TRANSFIGURATION   OF   CHRIST. 

And  these  convictions  of  the  human  soul  find  mani- 
fold  support  in  what  men  see  on  many  sides.  There 
are  abundant  instances  in  which  some  splendor  which 
is  by  and  by  to  become  fixed  and  habitual  sliows  itself 
first  in  a  sudden  splendid  flash  of  light,  which  disap- 
pears the  moment  it  has  showed  itself  to  the  man's 
astonished  eyes.  When  was  ever  any  invention  made 
which  ultimately  was  to  take  its  quiet  place  in  the 
midst  of  the  prosperous  industry  of  humankind,  but 
fii'st  it  showed  itself  as  a  dream  and  vanished  like  an 
impossibility  before  the  eyes  of  some  amazed,  ingenioiis 
youth,  who  hopelessly  begged  that  it  would  stay  with 
him,  and  wist  not  what  he  said  ?  The  motive  which  by 
and  by,  with  its  steady  pressure,  is  going  to  move  all 
our  Hfe  is  felt  first  like  a  wayward  gust  out  of  some 
transcendental,  unimaginable  world.  The  friend  who 
is  to  be  oui*  life's  unfailing  solace  appears  to  us  first  in 
some  garment  of  light,  which  we  can  only  reverence  at 
a  distance,  and  can  never  dare  to  touch.  It  is  the 
most  familiar  testimony  of  all  truly  thoughtful  men. 
That  which  is  ultimately  to  become  the  soul's  habitual 
support  comes  first  in  some  supreme  exceptional  man- 
ifestation, which,  even  though  it  disappears,  stUl  leaves 
behind  it  in  man's  instincts  a  memory  that  is  full  of 
hope,  a  deep  conviction  that  it  has  not  gone  forever, 
and  so  a  strength  to  watch  and  wait  and  hope  for  its 
return. 

It  seems  to  me  like  this :  A  traveler  is  going  through 
a  country  by  a  long  straight  road  which  leads  at  last 
to  a  great  city  which  is  his  final  goal.  At  the  very  be- 
ginning of  the  journey  the  road  leads  over  a  high  hill. 
Up  on  the  simimit  of  that  hill  the  traveler  can  clearly 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION   OF   CHRIST.  341 

see  the  spires  of  the  far-away  city  flashing  in  the  sun. 
He  feasts  his  eyes  on  it.  He  fills  his  eyes  with  it. 
And  then  he  follows  the  road  down  iato  the  vaUey. 
It  loses  the  sight  of  the  city  almost  immediately.  It 
plunges  into  forests.  It  sounds  the  depths  in  which 
flow  the  dark  waters  which  the  sun  never  touches. 
But  yet  it  never  forgets  the  city  which  it  saw  from  the 
hUltop.  It  feels  that  distant  unforgotten  glory  draw- 
ing it  toward  it  in  a  tight  straight  line.  And  when  at 
last  the  traveler  enters  in  and  makes  that  city  thence- 
forth his  home,  it  is  not  strange  to  him,  because  of  the 
prophecy  of  it  which  has  been  in  his  heart  ever  since 
he  saw  it  from  the  hill. 

If  we  read  rightly,  thus,  the  method  by  which  God 
brings  His  cldldi'en  to  their  best  attainment,  it  is  cer- 
tainly a  method  fuU  of  wisdom  and  beauty.  Fu*st  He 
lets  shine  upon  them  for  a  moment  the  thing  He  wants 
them  to  become,  the  greatness  or  the  goodness  which 
He  wishes  them  to  reach.  And  then,  with  that  shining 
vision  fastened  in  their  hearts.  He  sets  them  forth  on 
the  long  road  to  reach  it.  The  vision  does  not  make 
it  theirs.  The  journey  is  stni  to  be  made,  the  battle  is 
stiQ  to  be  fought,  the  task  is  stdl  to  be  done.  But  aU 
the  time,  through  the  long  process,  that  sight  which 
the  man  saw  from  the  mountain-top  is  still  before 
the  eyes,  and  no  darkness  can  be  perfectly  discourag- 
ing to  him  who  keeps  that  memory  and  prophecy  of 
light. 

A  memory  which  is  not  also  a  prophecy  is  terrible. 
Better  to  forget  than  to  remember  only  as  a  thing  that 
is  past  and  finished  forever.  You  recall  the  happy 
days  of  an  old  friendship.     Unless  it  is  a  perpetual 


342  THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OP  CHRIST. 

revelatioik  to  you  of  the  perfect  friendship  of  the  per- 
fect life  it  comes  to  be  a  torture. 

"  'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all ; " 

but  the  true  blessedness  is  reached  only  when  you  know 
that  that  which  you  have  seen  plunged  into  the  fiery 
furnace  is  to  come  out  again,  the  same,  but  finer,  purer, 
holier,  more  worthy  of  the  child  of  God ! 

When  we  have  really  grasped  this  truth,  then  how 
interesting  and  impressive  becomes  the  sight  of  the  life 
of  our  fellow-men !  Many  and  many  of  these  men 
whom  we  see  plodding  on  in  their  dusty  ways  are 
traveling  with  visions  in  their  souls.  Nobody  knows 
it  but  themselves  and  God.  Once,  years  ago,  they  saw 
a  light.  They  knew,  if  only  for  a  moment,  what  com- 
panionships, what  attainments,  they  were  made  for 
That  hght  has  never  faded.  It  is  the  soul  of  good 
things  which  they  are  doing  in  the  world  to-day.  It 
makes  them  sure  when  other  men  think  their  faith  is 
gone.  It  will  be  with  them  till  the  end,  until  they 
come  to  all  it  prophesies. 

Childhood,  coming  at  the  beginning  of  every  life,  is 
in  the  lives  of  many  men  this  time  of  vision  and  of 
prophecy.  We  live  in  those  fii'st  years  in  which  it 
seems  easy  to  do  and  be  great  things.  We  are  full  of 
the  sense  of  God.  We  are  surrounded  by  an  atmo- 
sphere of  faith.  And  then  come  doubt  and  hardship 
and  the  falseness  of  men.  TeU  me,  who  is  there  of  us 
that  could  live  through  it  all  if  we  had  not  been  upon 
the  mountain-top  first  and  seen  and  beheved?  There 
is  not  the  skeptic  who  once  prayed  as  a  little  child  that 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION   OF  CHRIST.  343 

is  not  to  the  end  of  his  skeptical  life  the  better  for  that 
prayer.  There  is  not  the  cynic,  despising  and  despair- 
ing of  his  brethren,  who  has  not  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  the  seed  of  a  better  hope,  kept  from  the  days 
when  as  a  boy  he  trusted  them  and  knew  that  in  every 
one  of  them  was  a  capacity  of  goodness. 

If  we  go  a  little  deeper  into  the  philosophy  of  this 
power  which  belongs  to  the  memory  of  our  best 
moments,  if  we  ask  ourselves  why  it  is  that  God  has 
appointed  such  a  treatment  as  I  have  been  trying  to 
describe  for  His  childi-en,  I  think  we  are  not  wholly  at 
a  loss.  May  it  not  be  that  in  this  way  a  condition  or 
conviction  which  in  the  first  place  took  its  shape  under 
special  circumstances  may  best  become  an  independent 
spiritual  possession  of  the  soul,  to  be  used  in  all  the 
various  circumstances  of  the  life  f  You  cast  a  tool  of 
iron  in  a  mold.  Then  you  break  the  mold  and  throw 
it  away ;  but  the  tool  which  first  took  shape  in  it  stays 
in  your  hand  and  is  yours  for  a  hundred  uses.  So, 
suppose  that  years  ago  there  came  some  crisis  in  your 
life  which  taught  you  the  necessity  and  the  glory  of 
being  brave.  It  was  some  mighty  day  of  God  with 
you.  With  UghtniQgs  and  thunderings  God  scattered 
your  timid  fears  and  made  your  whole  mascuhne  vigor 
to  come  forth.  You  dared  to  fight  because  you  dared  not 
feebly  run  away.  It  was  a  revelation  of  you  to  youi'self . 
What  then  ?  The  crisis  past,  the  hghtnings  faded  and 
the  thunders  hushed,  you  came  down  from  the  moun- 
tain. Ever  since  that  you  have  walked  on  in  quiet, 
level  ways.  But  many  a  time,  in  simple  tasks  which 
had  not  power  of  themselves  to  bring  you  such  self- 
revelations,  you  have  found  yourself  able  to  be  brave 


344  THE  TRANSFIGURATION   OF   CHRIST. 

with  a  bravery  whose  possibility  you  learned  in  that 
tremendous  hour.  If,  had  your  life  continued  in  that 
tumult,  you  would  have  come  to  think  that  bravery 
belonged  to  tumult  and  was  only  possible  in  the  stress 
of  battle,  can  you  not  see  why  God  caused  the  sky  of 
your  life  to  clear,  and  would  not  let  you  build  yom* 
tabernacle  on  the  mountain  ?  Now  you  are  brave  for 
any  lot.  Your  courage,  summoned  by  some  petty 
struggle  of  to-day,  does  not  even  recall  the  first  awak- 
ening which  came  to  it  in  that  long-past  exalted  hour. 
Men  are  meeting  the  petty  enemies  of  the  household 
and  the  street  to-day  with  a  fortitude  and  a  fearless- 
ness which  they  learned  thirty  years  ago  on  the  bat- 
tle-fields of  the  Rebellion.  Men  are  bearing  little 
disappointments  with  a  patience  which  was  born  in 
them  while  they  stood  by  the  death-bed  of  their  best 
beloved  and  watched  the  hopes  of  all  their  life  slowly 
sink  under  the  rising  flood.  It  is  good  that  the  power 
which  is  first  born  under  exacting  and  peculiar  circum- 
stances should  then  be  set  free  from  those  circumstances 
altogether  and  become  the  general  possession  of  the 
life,  available  for  aU  its  needs.  The  cloud  forms  about 
the  mountain-peak;  but  once  formed  there,  it  floats 
away  and  drops  its  blessing  upon  many  fields. 

Closely  resembling  this  is  the  way  in  which  the  qual- 
ities of  great  men  become  the  possession  of  the  world. 
Great  men  are  in  the  world  what  the  most  enlightened 
and  exalted  experiences  are  in  the  life  of  any  man. 
They  are  the  mountain-tops  on  which  the  influences 
which  are  afterward  to  fertilize  our  whole  humanity 
have  birth.  There  stands  out  some  great  pattern  of 
unselfishness;  some  martyi*-life  which  totally  forgets 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST.  345 

itself  and  lives  in  suffering  self-sacrifice  for  fellow-men. 
About  that  man's  life  gathers  an  utterance,  an  exhibi- 
tion, of  the  glory  of  self-sacrifice — of  how  it  is  the  true 
life  of  mankind,  of  how  in  it  alone  man  becomes  truly 
man.  Does  all  that  abide  in  him,  live  and  die  in  his 
single  personality?  Does  it  disappear  forever  in  the 
withering  flames  which  consume  him  at  the  stake? 
Does  not  that  fire  set  it  free,  cast  it  forth  into  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  universal  human  nature,  and  make  it 
the  possession  of  all  mankind?  Have  not  you  and  I 
the  power  to  live  more  unselfishly  to-day  because  of 
the  unselfishness  of  the  gi-eat  monumental  lives  of  de- 
votion ? 

What  is  the  power  of  the  cross  of  Jesus  ?  Manifold, 
I  am  sure ;  more  manifold  than  you  or  I,  or  all  the 
sinners  who  have  been  saved  by  it,  or  all  the  theologians 
who  have  devoutly  studied  it  in  all  the  ages,  have 
begim  to  know  or  tell.  But  certainly  one  part  of  its 
power  lay  here:  it  was  the  loftiest  manifestation  of 
man's  power  to  give  himself  for  duty  and  for  fellow- 
man  that  the  earth  has  ever  seen.  In  Jesus  our 
humanity  went  up  into  the  mountain  and  was  transfig- 
ured. It  shone  with  light  there  on  the  cross.  Thence- 
forth, into  whatever  depths  of  selfishness  it  might 
descend,  it  carried  the  power  of  that  transfigm-ation 
with  it.  In  its  certainty  that  He  who  suffered  there 
was  one  with  it  and  really  bore  its  nature,  it  knew  that 
not  to  be  selfish,  but  to  be  unselfish,  was  its  true  life. 
That  is  the  reason  why  so  wonderfully,  through  aU  the 
years  of  miserable  self-seeking  which  have  come  since, 
souls  eveiywhere  have  come  out  under  the  power  of  that 
cross  and  let  themselves  be  crucified  for  f eUow-men,  and 


346  THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST. 

why  the  dream  of  a  world  glorious  with  mutual  devo^ 
tion  has  never  been  lost  out  of  men's  hearts. 

Those  lives  of  self-devotion,  however  himible  and 
obscure  they  seem,  have  always  themselves  the  same 
power  which  belongs  to  the-  sacrifice  of  Jesus.  They 
too  throw  light  on  darker  lives.  They  are  lesser  hill- 
tops gi'ouped  around  the  great  mountain.  Such  lives 
may  we  live  in  any  little  world  where  God  has  set  us ! 

The  most  interesting  and  suggestive  groups  in  the 
world  are  always  those  in  which  identity  and  contrast 
are  most  fitly  mingled.  A  scene  of  nature  gives  us 
the  best  pleasure  when  it  is  like  and  yet  unlike  some 
scene  which  we  have  seen  before;  not  its  mere  du- 
plicate, and,  on  the  other  hand,  not  so  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  it  as  to  suggest  no  comparison.  Two  men 
call  forth  our  interest  when  they  both  are  evidently 
human,  making  us  feel  the  humanity  which  is  common 
to  them  both,  and  yet  each  has  his  distinct  peculiarities 
and  personal  characteristics.  Is  not  this  the  principle 
which  really  is  at  the  heart  of  our  relation  to  the 
exalted  and  triumphant  moments  of  our  past  life? 
What  is  it  that  makes  a  man  plodding  along  through 
regions  of  prosaic  doubt  remember  always  one  shining 
day  of  years  ago,  when  all  the  clouds  of  doubt  parted 
and  swept  away,  and  for  the  time  he  thoroughly  be- 
lieved ?  It  is  because  of  the  sense  of  identity  and  the 
sense  of  contrast  both,  which  the  remembrance  of  that 
day  brings  with  it.  In  the  midst  of  all  his  bewilder- 
ment he  feels  sure  that  he  is  the  same  man  who  lived 
that  glorious,  ecstatic  day.  It  is  not  another  man's. 
It  is  his.  And  in  aU  the  exultant  sense  of  its  posses- 
sion he  is  all  the  more  terribly  aware  how  far  he  has 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST.  347 

departed  from  it  now.  It  fills  his  present  life  with 
shame.  These  two  together  blend  into  the  longing 
regard  with  which  he  looks  back  upon  it,  into  the 
eager  tenaeit)'^  with  which  he  treasures  it.  If  there 
were  no  sense  of  contrast  with  the  present,  that  long- 
past  day  of  loftier  experience  would  fade  away,  and 
the  man  would  live  in  the  mere  satisfaction  of  imme- 
diate delight.  If  there  were  no  sense  of  identity  the 
degenerate  present  would  seem  to  be  the  soul's  only 
condition.  The  happier  past  would  seem  to  belong  to 
some  other  man,  and  so  no  hope  would  flow  out  from 
it  to  the  prostrate  life,  promising  it  better  things. 

Is  not  this  so?  Years,  years  ago,  it  may  be,  God 
gave  you  a  day  of  exalted  communion  with  Himself. 
Perhaps  in  connection  with  some  particular  event  of 
suffering  or  joy,  perhaps  entirely  apart  from  anything 
which  happened,  as  if  God  gave  it  directly  out  of  His 
opened  hand,  God  sent  you  a  longer  or  a  shorter  period 
of  calm,  profound,  spu'itual  peace  and  joy.  It  was  full 
of  assui'ance.  God  seemed  very  real  and  very  near  to 
you.  His  truth  was  not  only  easy  to  beheve,  you  hun- 
gered after  more  of  it.  You  went  seeking  for  more 
that  you  might  know  of  Him.  You  did  not  need  to 
seek  for  Him ;  you  found  Him  everywhere.  Christ 
and  His  light  shone  out  from  everything.  As  you 
remember  those  days  you  have  no  doubt  of  their  real- 
ity. They  are  the  realest  days  of  aU  your  life.  They 
keep  a  hold  on  you  which  wiU  not  let  you  go.  And 
are  not  these  the  two  hands  with  which  they  hold  you 
— the  identity  and  the  contrast  of  your  present  life? 
"  I,  I,  this  same  I,  am  the  man  who  once  lived  near  to 
God ;"  and  "  Lo,  how  far  from  God,  in  what  a  desert  of 


348  THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST. 

worldliness  and  selfishness,  I  am  living  now ! "  The 
past,  our  own  best  past,  holds  us  with  these  two  hands 
and  will  not  let  us  go. 

No  doubt  there  is  a  deeper  truth  about  it  all.  Fol- 
low out  this  truth,  and  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  stop 
short  of  that  idea  of  our  self  which  is  in  the  heart  of 
God  and  with  which  He  made  us  to  conform.  That  is 
what  really  holds  us.  It  is  that  from  which  we  cannot 
get  away.  It  is  our  identity  and  our  contrast  with  that 
which,  mingled  together,  makes  the  restlessness,  the 
shame,  the  aspiration  of  our  lives.  That  "purpose  of 
God  concerning  us,"  underlying  our  Uves  all  the  while, 
breaking  forth  like  subterranean  fii*e  at  the  thinnest 
spots,  taking  possession  of  our  consciousness  at  its 
most  exalted  points,  as  the  flame  pours  out  from 
Vesuvius — that  is  what  really  declares  itself  in  our 
transfiguration  times. 

That  idea  of  them  makes  those  times  most  gracious 
in  our  liistory,  and  perfectly  explains  the  fascination 
for  us  which  they  never  lose.  They  are  the  utterance 
of  our  highest,  truest  possibility.  They  are  not  bril- 
liant unaccountable  exceptions.  They  are  our  normal 
life.  They  are  the  type  of  what  we  always  might  and 
ought  to  be.  For  the  exceptionalness  of  an  event  is 
not  properly  measured  by  its  rarity.  The  exception  is 
the  departure  from  the  law  of  life,  whether  it  comes 
rarely  or  comes  often.  If  the  law  of  a  man's  life,  the 
standard,  the  ideal  of  it,  is  that  he  shall  be  true,  and 
ninety-nine  times  to-day  he  lies  and  only  once  he  teUs 
the  truth,  those  ninety-nine  times  are  reaUy  ninety-nine 
exceptions.  Once,  only  once,  he  has  been  his  true  self, 
conformed  to  his  law. 


THE   TRANSFIGURATION   OF   CHRIST.  349 

It  is  really  the  feeling  of  tMs — to  put  the  matter  in 
a  little  different  way  from  that  in  which  we  have  put 
it  before — it  is  the  feeling  of  this  truth  that  our  best 
moments  are  not  departures  from  ourselves,  but  are 
really  the  only  moments  in  which  we  have  truly  been 
oui'selves,  which  has  made  the  memory  of  men's  best 
moments  hold  them  with  such  power.  Those  moments 
became  the  rallying-points  of  all  their  stniggles  after 
better  life.  Every  enterprising  experience  tm*ned  to 
them  as  to  a  burning  light,  drank  fi-om  them  as  from  a 
living  fountain.  They  gave  unity  to  all  the  scattered 
struggles.  This  and  that  effort  to  resist  temptation 
was  not  a  solitary  thing,  sure,  in  its  solitariness,  to  fail 
and  disappear.  They  were  signs  of  the  nature  strug- 
gling for  its  time  destiny,  the  destiny  which  had  been 
declared  and  recognized  as  its  truest  in  that  one  su- 
preme experience. 

All  this  must  have  come  to  Simon  Peter.  Between 
the  Transfiguration  time  and  the  time  of  his  Epistle  he 
had  lived  in  the  struggle  for  holiness  and  usefulness. 
Sometimes  he  had  succeeded.  Whenever  he  had  had 
success  in  any  degree,  that  success  must  have  realized 
itself  in  the  light  of  his  great  memory.  Whatever  he 
did  that  was  true  and  brave  must  have  most  easily 
naturalized  itself,  so  to  speak,  in  virtue  of  the  revela- 
tion which  had  come  to  him  upon  the  holy  mount,  that 
not  darkness,  but  light,  not  evil,  but  good,  not  useless- 
ness,  but  usefulness,  is  the  true  and  native  condition 
for  a  human  soul. 

If  all  the  world  could  know  that,  what  a  great 
change  would  come  !  If  we  could  all  be  sure  that  our 
best  is  our  most  natural — that  it  is  the  evil  which  is 


350  THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST. 

most  unnatural ;  if  I  knew  man  simply  in  his  intrinsic 
nature,  nothing  at  all  of  tliis  long  dark  history  of  his, 
I  think  that  nothing  he  could  do  would  be  so  good  as 
to  surprise  me.  It  would  be  his  wickedness  that  would 
seem  strange.  To  keep  that  feeling  about  him,  in  spite 
of  this  long  history  of  his — that  is  the  triumph  of  the 
truest  faith. 

The  best  men  are  the  truest  men.  This  patience, 
this  courage,  this  spirituality  which  makes  my  friend's 
life  or  the  world's  hero's  life  sublime  and  glorious,  is 
not  a  departure  from  humanity,  it  is  a  realization  of 
humanity.  When  we  look  at  it  we  want  to  say,  not, 
''  How  strange  that  a  man  should  be  this !  "  Rather 
we  want  to  say, ''  How  strange  that  any  man  should  be 
anything  but  this  !  " 

"  Christ  is  the  perfect  man,"  we  say.  When  we  say 
that  we  ought  to  mean  that  Christ  is  the  only  absolutely 
true  man  that  has  ever  lived ;  that  all  men,  just  as  far 
as  they  fall  short  of  Christ,  fall  short  of  humanity ; 
that  not  that  Jesus  should  be  sinless,  but  that  every 
other  human  being  who  ever  lived  should  be  a  sinner, 
is  the  real  moral  wonder  of  the  world. 

Here,  and  here  only,  can  come  the  real  meaning  of 
the  sinfulness  of  sin.  Let  me  go  about  always  saying 
to  myself,  "  To  err  is  human ! "  and  what  chance  is 
there  that  I,  being  conscious  of  and  rejoicing  in  my 
humanity,  should  think  it  terrible  to  do  what  I  beheve 
no  man  can  be  human  without  doing?  Somebody 
meets  me  and  says,  "  Christ !  "  ^'  Ah,  yes,"  I  answer ; 
"but  then,  you  know,  He  was  a  pecuhar  sort  of  man. 
He  was  not  just  man  like  us !  We  cannot  think  that 
we  can  be  what  He  was.     That  would  be  to  degrade 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION  OF  CHRIST.  351 

His  divinity  and  to  depreciate  His  work."  So  we  talk 
with  a  false  show  of  reverence,  when  reaUy  just  the 
opposite  is  true.  Really  we  disown  and  misinterpret 
Christ  when  we  refuse  to  see  in  Him  the  true  type  of 
man,  once  seeing  which  no  man  has  any  right  to  be 
satisfied  or  rest  until  he  comes  to  be  like  Him.  That 
is  the  real  power  of  His  redemption. 

The  best  man  is  the  truest  man.     It  is  in  our  best 
moments,  not  in  our  worst  moments,  that  we  are  most 
genuinely  om-selves.     Oh,  believe  in  your  noblest  im- 
pulses, in  your  pm-est  instincts,  in  your  most  unworldly 
and  spiritual  thoughts!     It  is  the  moment  when  the 
idea  of  your  profession  flashes  on  you  through  its  diy 
drudgery— that  is  the  moment  when  you  see  your 
occupation  the  most  truly.     Believe  that,  O  mercenary 
merchants,  O  clerks  and  shop-boys  overwhehued  and 
stunned  by  the  clamorous  detail  of  business  life !    You 
see  man  most  tridy  when  he  seems  to  you  to  be  made 
for  the  best  things.     Believe  that,  O  cynics !    May  God 
show  it  to  your  blinded  eyes.     You  see  your  true  self 
when  you  believe  that  the  best  and  pm-est  and  devout- 
est  moment  which  ever  came  to  you  is  only  the  sugges- 
tion of  what  you  were  meant  to  be  and  might  be  all 
the  time.     Believe  that,  O  children  of  God ! 

This  is  the  way  in  which  a  soul  Hves  forever  in  the 
light  which  first  began  to  bm-n  around  it  when  it  was 
with  Jesus  in  the  holy  mount ! 


Princeton   Theological  Semmary-Speer   Library 


1    1012  01096  8909 


Date  Due 


